RECAP: Draw Me Like One of Your FINAL GIRLS
Thank you so much to everyone who made an appointment to visit our Halloween group show Draw Me Like One of Your FINAL GIRLS!! Curated by Tracie Ching and Liz Reed (Cuddles & Rage), FINAL GIRLS featured an eclectic roster of 60 female and queer artists creating horror-themed work from a female/femme perspective. If you weren't able to see the show in-person, check out some photos of the installation below!
And if you missed out on our livestream tour + artist/curator Q&A, you can check it out on our @Spoke_Art Instagram IGTV.
To shop the full collection online, click HERE.
Participating artists include: Brighton Ballard | Allison Black | Steph C. | Caroline Caldwell | Victoria Casanova | Cryssy Cheung | Tracie Ching | Kremena Chipilova | Emily Connell | Gemma Correll | Cuddles & Rage (Liz Reed) | Sara Deck | Diosa | Pippa Dyrlaga | Edge (Ejiwa Enebene) | Olivia Fields | Ashley Floréal | Jenny Frison | Erin Gallagher | Susie Ghahremani | Bella Grace | Nicole Gustafsson | Jessica Hess | Horrible Adorables | Jellykoe | Sarah Joncas | Kawaii Suga (Isamar Medina) | Heidi Kenney | Gina Kirlew | Jemma Klein | Kim Ku | Dan Lam | Nan Lawson | Vivian Le | Alice Lee | Dami Lee | Ashly Lovett | Chelsea Lowe | Leigh Luna | Sarah Maxwell | Janaina Medeiros | Niky Motekallem | Aracely Muñoz | Karla Ortiz | Sharlene Perkins | Stacey Ransom | Paige Reynolds | Chloe Rice | Michelle Romo | Sister Hyde | Steenz | Eileen Steinbach | Lauren Rae Stewart | Ellen Surrey | Hannah Templer | Rosemary Valero-O'Connell | Ariel Vittori | Erica Williams | Zi Xu | Jade Young
In addition to prints and originals, we also released a limited edition of "trick-or-treat" goodie bags featuring a print and sticker set by Tracie Ching, with a sticker sheet by Cuddles & Rage, plus some Halloween sweets, all in a custom clear tote bag by exhibiting artist Gemma Correll!
Girls may be made of sugar and spice and everything nice, but our FINAL GIRLS exhibition is gory and gruesome and everything witchy. Ranging from devilish ceramics and paintings of blood-soaked beasts, to nostalgic slasher film posters and ominous masks draped with real human hair, this collection is anything but sweet. In the words of co-curator Cuddles & Rage: "This show is full of strong women and strong images, celebrating horror not only as a genre but a voice for some of our most intimate thoughts.”
However, as a gender allegedly cursed with "trying to have it all" within a genre plagued by virginal "damsels in distress”, final girls are often typecast as weak, one-dimensional plot accessories. Cuddles & Rage bemoans, “[horror] hasn't always recognized women in the light that we want to be recognized in… We're often there for just some extra kills and boobs.” Limited by scripted superficiality, traditional final girls are the last left standing simply because of sheer dumb luck, simpering sexuality, and a refusal to confront danger. Their delicate sensibilities and defenselessness are painted as inherent limitations of womanhood itself - for they could not, and would not, be both a proper lady and a proper killer.
Throughout the years, final girls have evolved into brave, capable, and decisive warriors - subverting gender stereotypes, and thus the entire final girls trope itself. Fluid, dynamic, and (albeit, stereotypically) masculinized, today's final girls are both sweet and feral, sexual and formidable, mothers and slayers - they finally have it all! They are no longer "final girls", they are female survivors. And the nature of their finality, their survival, is rooted in strength rather than weakness.
Our roster of women and queer artists explore this paradoxical trope through the lens of their own unique female/femme experiences - some quite literally recreating scenes from their favorite horror movies, others applying the domestic cliché to their own haunted narrative. And just as modern-day final girls are both beautiful and terrifying, so too are the works in this show.
Installation photos courtesy of SF Gallery Manager Lyndsie Fox.
