“ARTIST AS MODEL” 1982
POPULAR PRESS Perhaps the prevailing mood of this memorable show is best summarised in the work called 'Artist as Model', where Garrard shows herself emerging from an ornate gold frame. She has managed to assume a solid, three dimensional form, changing from a painted image to a sculptural alternative.
The transformation, however, is not complete. Part of her body still lingers within the frame and Garrard's sombre expression indicates that she entertains no illusions about the difficulties which today's women artists are bound to encounter in the future.
Richard Cork, Evening Standard, April 7 1983
ART PRESS Her deconstruction of stereotypes is always filtered through the re-construction of her past. For Garrard the idea of the re-presented image doesn't simply mark a loss - much of the current media-based work in America and Britain has been concerned with the lack inherent in the turnover of the stereotype and product image - but something regained, a sense of new beginnings. The re-presented image enters a more expanded relationship with its origins, something that was particularly evident in the exhibition 'Frameworks' Garrard also literally puts herself 'in the picture' in a number of works. In 'Artist as Model' she again appears as the unknown model from 'Surveillance' but now emerging from the frame ... Garrard's work suggests a series of absences, of identity, of independence, of status, of power.
John Roberts 'Between Ourselves', Ikon Gallery, Birmingham 1984
SITES
Central Foundation School Bow London
'Frameworks' Lewis Johnstone Gallery London
'Frames of Mind' Kettle's Yard Cambridge
COMPONENTS
Life size painted plaster portrait and frame
COLLECTION
Contemporary Art Society London
RESIDENCY
Three months at Central Foundation School, Bow organised by Whitechapel Art Gallery with funding from ILEA.