There is something terrifying about the combination of secondhand shapewear and a vintage cake stand. This said, Otepoti-based artist Victoria McIntosh utilises the two materials deftly to craft detailed and surprisingly diminutive "puddings" for her series The Desserts of Inadequacy.
Two examples of McIntosh’s work, titled Pudding I and Pudding II, have recently joined the Hocken’s Pictures Collection, a collection that holds more than 18,000 artworks with connections to Aotearoa and the Pacific, dating from 18th century voyagers through to contemporary artists. Purchased from Olga Gallery on Moray Pl, McIntosh’s works repurpose discarded materials, including vintage textiles and metalware, into strikingly inedible visual delights.
Based in Otepoti, McIntosh is a graduate of the Dunedin School of Art and a collector by nature. Her practice combines contemporary jewellery, sculpture, and assemblage into work that reflects her jeweller’s eye for detail. The puddings reward close inspection. The vintage cake stands, repainted beige, present their wares with a pallid pink flourish as McIntosh employs the texture, stretch, and firm finish of shapewear fabrics to new effect as casings for her desserts. There is a playful rhyme between shapewear garments, created with the express purpose of controlling the body, and the etymology of the word pudding, which is believed to come from the Latin word "botellus", meaning sausage.
McIntosh’s practice sends a wry but playful wink at social expectations and ideals around body image and autonomy through the material choices and construction processes of her desserts.
The collections
- The Hocken Collections and Gallery are open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-3pm. Free, behind-the-scenes tours every Thursday at 11am. Bookings not required.
