Artist Kerry Mackay sets up her exhibition in the Dunedin
School of Art Gallery this week. Photo by Linda Robertson.
Dunedin artist Kerry Mackay admits she got a bit carried
away with her latest exhibition.
Ms Mackay's self-described "handbag fetish" became the
inspiration for her master's degree in fine arts four years
ago and the contents were revealed at this week's opening in
the Dunedin School of Art Gallery.
"Every bag has a story. They're all like picture-book stories
for me," she said.
"Carried Away - 101 handbags make an exhibition of
themselves" took four years to complete while Ms Mackay
worked full-time as senior lecturer in visual arts at the
Dunedin College of Education.
"I found them all in secondhand shops and re-skinned them;
gave a new surface to an old thing," she said.
Some of the bags border on the bizarre; like a cat taking a
pheasant on a walk. Another is covered in eyes and the piece
de resistance is a handbag mirror ball.
A crucifix has been formed with bags carrying icons of Jesus
and the Virgin Mary.
"They were called 'So Obviously Rex' bags and in New Zealand
in the 1940s and 1950s they were considered a good bag to
give for 21sts and wedding gifts and things," she said.
"I remember sitting in church with my mother when she had one
of those. It was about the age I first started noticing
handbags.
I talked to a lot of my mother's generation about them and
even tracked down some women who used to work in the factory
in Christchurch.
"They were all serial numbered and were originally made of
leather until the '60s, when vinyl was seen as fashionable."
Handbags only became a common accessory in the 1880s, Ms
Mackay said, when women began to travel more regularly.
"The handbag designers soon started getting more
experimental.
"The more exotic they were, the more gorgeous women thought
they were," Ms Mackay said. "There were lots made of exotic
leather and fur, like alligator and armadillo, after the war
with all the rationing of materials like leather.
"I've got photos of women walking around in the 1940s
carrying handbags that look like taxidermy," she said.
"I do sometimes wonder if my art is taxidermy or upholstery."
A recent survey in England revealed the average 30-year-old
woman owned 21 handbags and bought a new one every three
months.
The exhibition is on until June 30.
nigel.benson@odt.co.nz
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