ELINE DE CLERCQ: Greek

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Artemisia

We might think of gardening as a romantic past-time. Yet, gardening has been an important tool for colonialism and possession, but also emancipation. Eline De Clercq (°1979, BE) created a lesbian Gesamthof in the monastery garden of Kunsthal Extra City and Morpho. As plants are non-binary, the garden is a safe space for lesbians. She brings together a community of humans and non-humans to work together with care for their ecology. For this exhibition, Eline selected accessible medicinal plants from the garden to reveal class issues in an intersectional context. Medical care in most countries is still reserved for those who can afford it. This selection of plants thrive everywhere and are freely available in the wild, even in urban areas. Historically, they are used to heal female or othered bodies. Eline's curation culminates in the presence of Artemisia, which grows all over the globe and is used against illnesses like malaria. In some cultures, it is known to cure hormonal imbalance and induce natural abortions, but when doses incorrectly it is deadly poisonous. The plant is an illustration of the dangers female bodies go trough as a result of inequality and sexism, but also becomes a symbol of freedom. With the growing world-wide criminalisation of abortion and the endangered Roe vs. Wade court rule in the US today, Artemisia might even be a symbol for the fight for self-determination and equal rights in the 21st century.

Text by Zeynep Kubat

Artemisia is an installation of plants and fabrics in Sugar for the Pill: plants from the lesbian Gesamthof, 2022. Artemisia Vulgaris, Salvia Officinalis, Mentha Citrata. Wool fabric on a cotton rope with a depiction of the goddess Artimisia on one side and the leaf of the Artemisia plant on the other side in oil paint. Cotton fabric on the wall with text informing about the plant, the use, the religion and other abortifacient plants, with a danger warning all written in oil paint.

Sugar for the Pill is a group exhibition curated by Zeynep Kubat and my work was shown alongside the works of artists Margaux Schwarz, Laurie Charles, Chantal van Rijt, Lysandre Begijn, Saddie Choua, Aurélie Bayad, Carole Mousset, Lisa Ijeoma, Pélagie Gbaguidi.

Image: Axelle Degrave

Sugar for the Pill

Antwerp Art Weekend 2022 central exhibition Sugar for the Pill, curated by Zeynep Kubat.

Study for sculpture with painting, coloured Kore portraits. 2020

These studies on paper are searching for ways to present the classic kore sculptures in colour. The white stone surface is replaced by an imagined coloured portrait.

Oil paint on paper, 46 x36 cm, 2020

Oil paint on paper, A4, 2020

Oil paint on wood-board, 30 x 20 cm, 2020

No Woman Is An Island, various sizes, oil paint drawings, 8 March 2020

No Woman Is An Island, 180x100cm, oil on paper, 2020

Nike, 180x100cm, oil on paper, 2020

Dione and Aphrodite, 180x100cm per paper (5 papers total), oil on paper, 2020

Demeter and Persephone, 180x200cm, oil on paper, 2020

Exhibition view International Women's Day 8 March 2020, Palais du Midi, Brussels

Aphrodite, approximately 200x150cm, oil on silk, 2020

Hestia, approximately 200x150cm, oil on silk, 2020

These works are created for International Women's Day 8 March 2020, with the specific location in mind of the South Palace / Palais du Midi in Brussels. During the all day concours of different sports, all played by women sport teams, these drawings on white silk shared a backdrop of European, Belgian and Brussels flags. The drawings on paper filled a long arcaded gallery looking down on the playing field. From the ground one could see the goddesses in strong poses showing feminine curves and elegant robes. The event was organised by the LGBTQ+ and lesbian community building organisation Match Belgium.

Edit - January 1st 2021: the title 'No Woman is an Island' is a reference to John Donne's poem from 1624, changed because it is about being a lesbian. The word 'lesbian' comes from the Greek island Lesbos, hence the reference: a woman can be a lesbian, it doesn't mean she is an island. Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä built a house on a tiny uninhabited island in the gulf of Finland, and Agnes Martin lived in isolation in New Mexico, an island of a different kind. These women inspire and fascinate me, and the title is an ode to being a lesbian.