Original Gyal Dem.  2019.  Site specific.  Oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas with mural. 

In this installation – Original Gyal Dem – Bex Massey discusses the farcical disparity between the genders, in burying women who have changed the course of history in the gender stereotypes, curb calls, ageism and objectification which has condemned them to the role of ‘the second sex’.   

Women presently occupy around 0.5% of recorded history.  In reaction to this Massey immortalises Jane Austen, Rosa Parks, Valentina Tereshkova and Indira Gandhi in the equally endemically masculine Medium of paint.  The canvas frame containing the four heroines is a further nod to the stifling box that women have been placed in for time immemorial.  Like this systemic bigotry-these linear restraints are also starting to fracture as symbolism breaks free of the stretcher and fills the galleries walls