Dreamers Delight, Solo Booth Presentations at Spring/ Break Art Fair, NYC, NY curated by Lauren Hirshfield

Dreamers Delight Press Release, Curated by Lauren Hirshfield

Scholar KE Rowe writes in Fairy Tales and Feminism and New Approaches,“In the history of folktale and fairy tales, women as storytellers have woven or spun their yarns, speaking at one level to a total culture, but at another to a sisterhood of readers who will understand the hidden language, the secret revelations of the tale”. By transferring the storyteller power to women not only are these tales recontextualized to support a feminist perspective, but women are giving women permission to hold space for themselves and others alike. Much of the work artist Jen Dwyer creates writes a hopeful reality anchored by demystifying and deconstructing existing generalizations that folks - particularly women - exhibit in binary person-hoods. The world Dwyer imagines through her ceramics is overtly feminine; a plethora of pastel tones, soft edges, lace patterning, and quintessential femme accessories. Body positivity, LGBTQ marriage rights, and “Femme As F*ck” are currently on the same timeline as Neo-Nazis, Breitbart, and “grab her by the p*ssy” mentality. Thus, Dreamer’s Delight presents a space that is unabashedly femme because for Dwyer, the only means to combat and rewrite women in history is through extremes. 

Rococo design is best defined by an attention to ornate details, an abundance of pastel tones, and bodelesque women in states of frivolity. A recurring muse for Dwyer is the Venus de Willendorf, one of the first documented depictions of the female form. Combining this ancient archetype with contemporary iconography and lavish Rococo-esque detailing, her ceramics depict various acts of feminine self care. The works are playful and joyful - mirrors of the “soft spaces”, as Dwyer describes them, women seek out and hold dear. Such spaces for leisure perhaps best epitomize the French Rococo era. It was the pinnacle of luxe commodity and ignorant bliss, a period when excess was applauded to prove status and financial health. 

Le Petit Trianon, a small château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, is an ambassador for such excess - an estate within an estate; a castle within a castle. When the famed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette took the throne after Louis XV’s untimely death, the new King gifted Le Petit Trianon to Marie as a château all her own. It became the Queen’s place of leisure where she could rest from the trials of daily court life - an exclusive space for her innermost circle. Dwyer parallels this co-opted feminine estate to Millenial girlhood and “the 90s sleepover”. Sleepovers are traditionally exclusive places for females to support females and hold space for vulnerability, nostalgia, secrets, and freedom to express a variety of selves.

European fairy tales have been scribed, translated, and retold as societies have modernized over centuries. What KE Rowe points out is, through each variation the female archetypes presented have always languished at the minds of male writers. Snow White for example portrays a conflict between an egotistically assertive stepmother and the engelically passive Snow White. The interpretation, it could be argued, is a patriarchal-imposed bipolar image of women, which reifies females as powerless aesthetic objects and thereby subverts their creative powers. Dreamer’s Delight brings to life a sacred “soft” space that instead welcomes those who uphold equality, equity, and the power in frivolity.

We often scold the “more is more” mentality, chasing sociopolitical equity to prove we care. Author Ingrid Fetell Lee in her book Joyful argues however that “in abundance, there is joy”. Dwyer sees her saccharine, shimmer detailed sculptures as a means to obtain this joy. She asks of a world where people value being gentle over aggressive, who become quiet rather than loud, who trust intuition above “facts”.  Her sculptures encourage viewers to celebrate the strength in unrestrained femininity, accept expressions of self-love and intimacy, and indulge in a bit of fantasy.