Mistress of the Boa

Mining the languages of Pop Art, abstraction and fabric design, Lara Schnitger’s Mistress of the Boa confronts issues surrounding femininity, materiality and craft. Executed in 2009, it belongs to a group of works featuring bold, seductive female characters against collaged patterned backdrops. Born in the Netherlands, and now based between Amsterdam and Los Angeles, Schnitger grew up with a passion for performance, fashion and sewing. Throughout her practice, she co-opts the traditionally ‘girlish’ connotations of textile-based crafts in order to challenge representations of gender, sexuality, desire and the female body. In the present work, her use of Ben Day-style dots evokes the pin-up girls of Sigmar Polke and Gerald Laing, recast here as an expression of feminine liberation and power. Her works delight in the sensual interplay of material, surface, texture and image, channelling influences drawn from the worlds of theatre, sculpture, painting, children’s toys and costume designs. Schitgner has enjoyed widespread critical acclaim, with solo exhibitions at the Sculpture Center, New York, the Bonnefantenmuseum Pavilion, Maastricht and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.