Peeling labels

By SUSAN ASCHOFF

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2000

The underCURRENT/overVIEW4 show, opening today at the Tampa Museum of Art, poses a question dissected by artists throughout time: Who are we?

Margaret Steward, Mutually Arising, wood, screen and nylon.

Some of the most compelling answers come from women.

Of the 13 artists from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties chosen to exhibit, 10 are women.

Maybe examining identity and the roles we play comes naturally to a gender that is nothing if not multifaceted.

Society loads women with many labels: Am I madonna or sex toy, incubator or chick, punching bag or castrater, mother or child?

For the fourth annual show, curator Elaine Gustafson accepted self-nominations rather than asking established artists and professionals to suggest participants. Her selections were based on the quality of work and the theme of identity, she says. Feminine issues often emerged.

Depictions of dress forms and shoes pop up on canvases and in photographs. Breasts are not coupled for cleavage but detached and multiplied.

It would be simplistic to say these women do only women's work.

Or to suggest that the men in the show do not look inward just because they have their Y.

"They all deal with questions of identity, whether unconscious or conscious," says Gustafson. "Some do it through pop culture or humor, others through gender roles.

"I think it's pertinent in this day and age, when there are so many messages being bombarded at us, that these artists are dealing with how this affects their lives."

What is evident in the gallery is that even when the messages seek to diminish, a woman's view is inexorably powerful.

Follow these links for profiles of three female artists in the show.

• She objects
  Victoria Hirt records the wreckage of a sexist society.
• On a role
  A uterus becomes a poker table and the menstrual cycle's 28 days the numbers on a roulette wheel when Sarah M. Howard interprets the high-stakes gamble that is sex and reproduction.
• Moving in place
  Bleached wooden circles and screen fabric litter the house as though some distracted archaeologist has wandered off in the middle of a dig.

At a glance
underCURRENT/overVIEW 4 - The Tampa Museum of Art continues its series examining leading area artists with "underCURRENT/overVIEW 4,'' opening today and running through Aug. 20. The new installment presents 13 artists from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties: Barbra Beeler, Suzanne Camp Crosby, Nancy Cervenka-McLaughlin, Gerald Habarth, Victoria Hirt, Sarah M. Howard, Thomas Kettner, Betsy Orbe Lester, Kathie Olivas, Stacy Rosende, M.K. Simqu, Margaret Steward and David Williams. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Adult admission is $5; seniors $4; students with identification and children over 6, $3. Admission by requested donation 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday and 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. 600 N Ashley Drive, Tampa; (813) 274-8130.

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