Coming Clean – an exhibition of etchings, monotypes, photographic prints and readymade objects by Rhodes University MFA student Cassandra Wilmot.
Coming Clean – an exhibition of etchings, monotypes, photographic prints and readymade objects by Rhodes University MFA student Cassandra Wilmot.
To “come clean” refers to a process of disclosure in which one confesses or admits to something which has been withheld.
Coming Clean, an exhibition of etchings, monotypes, photographic prints and readymade objects by Rhodes University MFA candidate, Cassandra Wilmot, can similarly be read as a form of disclosure with the aim of reconciliation.
Both detachedly scientific and sincerely intimate, the exhibition deals with themes of loss, memory and narrative inheritance.
Taken literally, “come clean” implies the elimination of dirt.
This notion of erasing traces of uncleanliness largely informs the body of work which focuses on traces of the past that impinge on the present.
These traces, remainders and reminders of those who are deceased, are shown to acknowledge and commemorate loss, to evoke the state of loss as experienced by the bereaved, and to act as ‘selective disclosures’ which partially conceal as they reveal.
Using representations of and allusions to the ritual domestic process of laundering garments of clothing, the exhibition as a whole examines how the treatment of traces – like the washing, bleaching and ironing of clothing – affects both remembrance and the ritual of loss, while also taking into account the complexities experienced by those who have been bereaved and the delicate process of familial communication following the loss of a family member.
The exhibition will open on 1 March 2013 at 5.30pm at the Standard Bank Gallery in the Albany History Museum. The exhibition will be open to the public until 9 March 2013.
