Exploring folklore and the feminine

ARTIST, apprentice, tattoo artist and theatre set producer Chrissy Button is sharing works inspired by folklore and the feminine at Backspace Gallery.

Daughters of Baba Yaga draws on Button’s Polish heritage and is open until Sunday 17 August.

Baba Yaga is a figure of Eastern European folklore, often depicted as a witch, who commands a herd of 41 daughter-horses to run away from a prince who is guarding them for three nights.

Across the three nights, creatures of the forest assist the prince, making the horses’ task impossible, and consequently Baba Yaga beats the daughter-horses.

Using toy horses, Button collected from op-shops, she disfigured the animals and wrapped them in recycled cloth to represent the 41 horses of the fairytale.

“It’s been two years of finding and making horses,” she said.

Red stitching is used, as in Poland the colour red wards off evil spirits and the evil eye.

“I was working on finding a way into my Polish heritage,” she said.

“My grandparents were immigrants after the war, so quite often in that case there isn’t a lot of discussion about the past, it’s more about the bright future.

“My Babcia always wore a little but of red and she actually tied red ribbons around her ducks’ ankles to keep them safe, so they weren’t hurt by other people’s ill wishes.”

The exhibition also includes two-dimensional works which reflect on how women may treat each other poorly or tear each other down.

Button used images of her eye throughout the two and three-dimensional works.

“It implicates myself in the broader concepts of envy and how women can quite often be quite cruel to other women,” she said.

Button said she hopes visitors to the exhibition feel a sense of wonder and that they might reflect on their own actions.

“It’s unravelling some of those behaviours and bringing them out because there’s things that we don’t talk about,” she said.

“At the same time, I like to have a sense of wonder that you can come in and look at the work, but then also come in really close and look at the details and the stitchwork.

“Art should be surprising and fun as much as it is challenging.”