ARTIST KATE GROOBY IS PURE PLEASURE

Artist Kate Grooby celebrates female pleasure in a flurry of colour and dance.

Incorporating themes associated with femininity and the female body Grooby uses video and sound, dancing as different painted characters to homemade tracks that tell a different story of sexual politics with each routine.

In some dancing clips, this discussion of female pleasure is blunt as Grooby incorporates physical objects that connote pleasure and womanhood such as the moon and a variety of fruits, in other routines the themes were more subtle.

Give Me What I Want, Kate Grooby

Combining joy and philosophy, each dance is acted out by a different character.

Using a catsuit, Grooby attaches and draws on aspects of the female appearance both biological, such as breasts, and societal, red high heels. However this isn’t done in a complete manner, she might have breast but she also possess wings in one dance and the effect of this incomplete picture of a person is that the real personality, despite what society demands, lies underneath and will be set free.

Pure Pleasure, Kate Grooby

Held in the tower room at the Ikon gallery there is certainly an intimate feeling to the piece, the small size of the room forces the viewers attention to the work and nothing else.

As well as the film displaying the Daiwa Art Foundation winner’s impressive dancing, a life-sized model with a painted backdrop were present depicting the outfit and the setting of one of her dances.

An interesting and thought-provoking exhibition, it was also fun.

Eleanor Forrest