Mrs. Benway
Fourteen30 Contemporary
Portland, OR
September 18 - November 14 2015

Wynne Greenwood
Lara Kim
Jenine Marsh
Anna Sew Hoy
Emily Mae Smith

Titled after Jutta Koether’s column in the formerly Cologne-based periodical Spex, Mrs. Benway is a glimpse into the contemporary form of identity and arts creation – perhaps better thought of as a freedom of form, both in style and politics. Koether’s column, published 1985-1990, continuing the hybridity common within the Cologne art scene at that time, drew from a motley body of influences, ranging from daily observations, fine arts, film and literature. Similarly, the artists presented in Mrs. Benway produce work with an understanding of the multitude of artistic, female, and queered modes of existence.
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Jenine Marsh’s approach to sculpture implicates the surface of her works as the site of inquisition, disfigurement and liberation. Considering the sculptural surface as analogous to the surface of the body, skin, Marsh's works play with the notions of identity through materiality. In her manipulation of the variety of materials used, her works empathetically react to the artist’s hand that forms them.
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Drawing from a variety of media, Mrs. Benway presents the wholeness that results from the constituent potentials of womanhood — embodied through artists, mothers, performers, writers and musicians.

UM, 2014
Air dry clay, water based varnish

No Occasion... Extroverts, 2015
flowers, synthetic rubber, wood glue, latex, air dry
clay, water based varnish, polyurethane adhesive

No Occasion... Specters, 2015.
flowers, synthetic rubber, latex, glasses chain, air
dry clay, water based varnish

The Articulate Muscle, 2015
Air dry clay, water based varnish


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