Olga Cironis has been wrapping and stitching objects for several years, sometimes in velvet and in more recent years she has turned to blankets.
Local art lovers will remember her impressive tree she covered in blanket at the Fremantle Arts Centre in 2007, and her herd of strange creatures based on her young daughter’s drawings of animals held at Turner Galleries in 2008.
Her new exhibition features blankets she has been collecting for many years, each one representing a different period of time by its colour or design. Olga’s work addresses identity and memory and how we link it to notions of place, tradition, culture and customs. She has a personal history as a migrant and this informs her investigations of how people (and in this case women) are defined and labelled by local language and its hidden and double meanings.
In this exhibition of new work Olga has wrapped a lounge chair and footstool that can be sat upon to contemplate the impressive major work in the show: The wrapping of the 8.7meter long and 3 meter high dividing wall of the gallery in embroidered blankets.
Accompanying these works are smaller wall mounted works in which she has framed sections of blankets, sometimes retaining some of the original contents of the second-hand frames. The frames, like the blankets, are infused with memory and the past.
Olga mused that she feels
“as if each blanket hides the past owner’s desires, history and era. Somehow it can represent a culture and society depending on the weave, wool blend, brand or pattern... To cut up blankets into little pieces is like cutting into the flesh of the people who laid beneath the warmth of them… The nature of blankets keeps one warm and at the same time receives bodily fluids and hairs like a lover. Blankets smell of people, they are stained, torn, burned and pierced to reveal holes over time… The process of stitching and stretching the woollen blanket over domestic objects such as furniture is a cathartic experience. I imagine similar to that of embalming. The act of covering, hiding and stitching is like redefining the object’s use, it can be both an act of protection and at the same time an act of suffocation.”
Several of the blanketed objects and framed works have text embroidered onto their surface, words and statements such as ‘bitch’, ‘cougar’, ‘slut’, ‘whore’ or ‘frigid’. Words, in general that are derogatory to women, labelling them in terms of male desire. The words fill the gallery space with voices of loss, fear, humiliation, anger and violation. Phrases, such as ‘today I am what you want me to be” adorning the footstool, could be interpreted as submissive, provocative or even ironic. These blankets no longer comfort but confront. They make the viewer question how we label women, but they are not without a sense of humour and hopefully will allow us to laugh at ourselves.
Olga has work in several local collections including BankWest, Royal Perth Hospital, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery, Central Institute of Technology, Fremantle Hospital and many private collections.
 exhibition installation |
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 that's one way to show your love |
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 framia [installation south wall] |
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 framia [installation north wall] |
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