Egg Woke

Solo Exhibition by Charlotte Hicks

What does feminism look like today? This question is hard to answer. Feminism is becoming increasingly intersectional and unapologetic, and, in turn, decreasingly homogenous and elitist. It has embraced with open arms the buzzwords of today which are too often emptied of meaning by performative commercial and corporate agendas, and as a result has expanded in scope. It is, for the most part, ‘woke’. But with ‘wokeness’ being weaponised and misrepresented globally, feminism still gets a bad rap.

At the vanguard of this war on wokeness are the die-hard defenders of the privileged white male. They will weaponise the word against anyone who dares to point at the gaping holes in the fabric of their cultural and political awareness, claiming victim status for themselves. Laurence Fox’s public denunciations of the woke woman in particular are emblematic of the wider games of linguistic ping-pong instigated by the right when their inadequacies are brought to attention. Before ‘woke’, there was ‘politically correct’. There is no nuance to these petty clap-backs, and yet they contribute widely to the misrepresentation of feminism.

Amidst this chaos, we bring you ‘Egg Woke’, an online exhibition presenting the work of artist Charlotte Hicks. Confronting the ubiquity of female objectification in the media, Charlotte undertakes a dignification of images she finds online, where it is becoming increasingly difficult to situate depictions of women within today’s unapologetic and nudity-brandishing feminism.

Charlotte’s use of fabric and textiles hearkens to female connotations past and present, and her practice is informed and inspired by Judy Chicago. A while ago Charlotte was an apprentice to Judy, an unrivalled tour-de-force in feminist art, where she discovered the agility of textile as a medium. Since, she has aspired to make her fabric-based art “as interesting to people as oil or sculpture."

Whilst feminism now stands for a greater spectrum of female experience than ever before, objectification remains omnipresent. Its ubiquity is Charlotte’s subject, and her art digests and dignifies this, reflecting visually the vibrancy that a diverse and inclusive feminism flaunts in the face of tiresome and reductive anti-woke credos.

“It is easier for us today to distinguish between what is meant to be empowering and what is not. We are bombarded with images of the female body; we need to take a step back. To consider if we are actually seeing what we think we are seeing”

— Charlotte Hicks

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Inside Charlotte Hicks’ studio, London, UK

About Charlotte Hicks

b 1997 British, based in London

Charlotte Hicks is a British artist currently working in London. she completed her BA at Edinburgh College of Art and was an assistant to american feminist artist icon and art educator, Judy Chicago in New Mexico (2018). These formative moments allowed Hicks to build the foundations of her subject matter. Aware of the phenomenon of 'The Faceless Woman’, a prominent and ubiquitous feature of contemporary media, Charlotte Hicks’ work depicts women's decapitation from her body, portraying it as a tool used by the male gaze to reduce her to a passive object, existing solely for the purpose of being looked at. Her recent exhibitions include: Rafiki Gallery; Wimbledon Art Studios Spring/Autumn shows; Orbit UK Art Show; OXO Bargehouse, London; Breakout Artists 2019 and Art Pistol Gallery, Glasgow.