Feminist art enters Cult Status

WHAT: Cult Sisters 5 with live music from The Great Confinement
WHEN: June 12, 7 p.m.
WHERE: Cult Status Gallery, 2913 Harriet Ave. S.
COST: Free

It’s midmorning and Erin Sayer is spraying “Cult Sisters 5” on the walls of Cult Status Gallery with three different colors of spray paint. Something says this is not a unique morning for Sayer, Kara Hendershot, J.M. Culver, Louisa Greenstock and Gina Louise , who collectively call themselves by the name now running down the wall. The five artists — female and proud of it — are prepping for their highly anticipated exhibit this weekend at Sayer’s own neatly unkempt Cult Status Gallery.
“We are five emerging female artists, and our work makes a strong statement,” Culver said. “I think that’s what connects us all together.”
The manner in which the Sisters met was, for lack of a better phrase, so 2009. Sayer met Hendershot as she was painting “this awesome portrait of Conan O’Brien on the wall.” The rest got to know each other through Facebook .
“We’ve done like everything through Facebook,” Sayers said.
Though each of the five has a particularly unique way of interpreting art, they agreed that it’s the gender dubiousness in their work that binds them together.
“You wouldn’t necessarily look at our work and say, “Oh, a woman did that,” Culver said.
Hendershot labors under abstraction, creating a beautiful mess of dripping reds and yellows on the canvas that ends up somewhere between Van Gogh and graffiti. Culver expounds narratives of childhood memories in her charcoals and acrylics. Louise, also a poet, creates sprightly shape-heavy mixed media. Sayer and Greenstock focus most of their work on the sexiness of rock stars. Is there something particularly unlady-like here?
“Maybe it’s because we don’t draw vaginas and flowers,” Sayer joked.
“The society is still a little patriarchal,” she said. “I think people for some reason still trust men more.”
To aid in their fight against patriarchy, the Sisters hired literary-bent and feminist trio The Great Confinement to provide background noise of the show. The all-female group is comprised of a fake-mustached drummer and Victorian-underwear-adorning cello and clarinet players.
For college students, the event is opportune not only for eye candy, but for networking and future planning.
“This gallery is particularly accessible for young artists to show work,” Hendershot said.