Locks Gallery is pleased to present Tea Party, a group exhibition with Ann Agee (b. 1959), Polly Apfelbaum (b. 1955), Lynda Benglis (b. 1941), Hanne Friis (b. 1972), Maria Nepomuceno (b. 1976), Beverly Semmes (b. 1958), and Yeesookyung (b. 1963). This exhibition features sculptures and mixed media works that transform traditionally decorative materials into subversive and sensuous art forms. Through playful material experimentation as well as cultural and art historical references, these seven artists go beyond a referential relationship to quintessentially “feminine” idioms. Objects intended to become decorative or functional become displays of embodied labor. Tradition is broken apart, and domesticity and excess is rendered wrought and profound, a twisted site of expansive power and joy..
Ceramics are a recurring trope used to intervene traditional associations of femininity and decorative art. In Beverly Semmes’s vibrant pots and collages, the vessel serves as a metaphor for the female body: an object meant to carry life, a projection of male desires. Clay pots in Brazilian-based Maria Neopomuceno’s Untitled (2014) hold amorphous growths of rope and beads, suggesting an outpouring flow of an infinite energy or spirit. Korean sculptor Yeesookyung affixes discarded porcelain shards to create Translated Vases, fabricating elaborate constructions of traditional Korean masterpieces. Ann Agee’s whimsical, rococo-like porcelain sculptures fragment and reassemble motifs of domestic life, labor, and child bearing into playful, exuberant, and even mischievous arrangements.
Several artists use weaving and textiles to imbue inanimate objects with breath of their own. Norwegian-based Hanne Friis’ hand-sewn Tongue (2025) transforms wool into a corporeal form, appearing on the verge of transformation. Beverly Semmes’s humorous, phallic-like Red Robe towers over the viewer, suggesting to paradoxically conceal and reveal a female body. Maria Nepomuceno’s beaded weavings also radiate out into space, like a natural growth, expanding and migrating without human intervention. Similarly, in Green Space, Polly Apfelbaum’s hand-dyed velvet flowers spread infectiously across the floor, juxtaposing the angularity of interior space.
Sculptures by Lynda Benglis, Hanne Friis, and Beverly Semmes merge process with form, transforming their materiality into shapes which appear to contradict their physical nature. Plastic becomes dense and heavy as in Benglis’ Chiron (2009), and fabric becomes compact, as in Friis’ Tongue (2025). Both works also seem to reference both the earth and body, swelling, contracting, and breathing on their own. Similarly, ceramics by Beverly Semmes are clunky and asymmetrical, revealing traces of the artist’s physical labor; as put by curator Ingrid Schaffner, these pots are “gruntingly physical embodiments of the touch, the craft, the pleasure, and the work that goes into building even the most elemental of forms.”