Bambou Gili
Bambou's practices unpack the way female bodies being portrayed by the old 'masters', and using her unique style she puts it back together in a new context through her lens. This allowed her to create space for questions and amplify what she found humorous or strange into the new creation.
Ophelia in the Tub. 2019. Image from artist's website.
Bambou’s practice asks us to see female bodies as one deserving of more than what old ‘masters’ (read: white men) have presented to us in the past. In her hands, we see women rendered comfortable in their own skin, rounded and at ease with themselves. Indeed, where women are often seen as overly serious when exuding confidence, Bambou injects humor in her work to subvert such ideas. Mischievous demons, cats, beer cans hide in plain sight while the figure goes about her life at night.
The depiction of the females themselves brings forward its own set of questions, namely the idea of what an Asian body should be seen as. Skin is obfuscated by being rendered lime green or blue and lain bare. Thus rejected as an obvious identity marker, their eyes are distinctly painted as if calling on the viewer to confront the physical attributes our gaze seeks to make a determination on the figures’ classification as “Asian.”
Neighborhood Sleep Paralysis. 2020. Image from artist's website.
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