Prints Charming

Comments (0) By Michael Singman-Aste Wednesday, Nov 28 2012

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Center for Sex & Culture

1349 Mission
San Francisco, CA 94103

Category: Galleries

Region: South of Market

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What was your favorite part of The Little Mermaid? Was it when the enchantress cuts out the mermaid’s tongue in payment for her potion? Ah, Disney omitted that detail from Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale, along with her suicide. Artist and editor Jos Truitt also strayed from Disney's version, reading it as a trans fairy tale. "I got a lot of responses from other transwomen about the resonance of this story." She exhibits pieces inspired by the story alongside watercolor paintings by Colette Standish in “Awash in Bodies: Work on Paper by Colette Standish and Jos Truitt.” Truitt combines a variety of printmaking techniques, including impressions of actual fish scales and human fingerprints. Like Andersen's mermaid whose feet felt like they “were walking on the sharp edges of swords,” Truitt's transformations are incomplete, bloody fragments of fins cleaving to scaly legs; but her path diverges from the original tragic ending in taking charge of her destiny, finding “a place to try for some agency.” Of her new work, Standish is forthright: “This is all about sex.” Although somewhat abstracted and dreamily blurred by the watercolor, her figures, playfully winking with their backs arched and legs spread, make that much clear. But that's not all. Standish prides herself on “marrying the intellect with the sensual.”
Mondays, Fridays, 7 p.m. Starts: Dec. 7. Continues through Jan. 27, 2012