Spoke Art gallery is thrilled to announce our Halloween group exhibition Draw Me Like One of Your FINAL GIRLS. Curated by Tracie Ching and Liz Reed (Cuddles & Rage), FINAL GIRLS will feature an eclectic roster of 60 women and queer artists exploring the “final girls” trope and all things horror from a female/femme perspective.

   

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 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.

   

Draw Me Like One of Your FINAL GIRLS will be on view Thursday, October 29th through Saturday, October 31st, and will close with a livestream tour and artist Q&A via @Spoke_Art’s Instagram on Halloween day at 2 pm Pacific. Out of respect for the health and safety of our visitors and colleagues, the gallery will be open by appointment only. To view our in-person safety measures and book an appointment, visit: https://calendly.com/spoke-art-sf/draw-me-like-one-of-your-final-girls-at-spoke-art-sf