Onna House announces “Pearls, Pills & Protests”, the first exhibition in their 2023 summer season. This group show features work by Jerelyn Hanrahan, Kelly Tapìa-Chuning, Lulu Varona, and Michele Pred, artists who promote feminist ideas through their creative medium. In 2022, Roe vs. Wade—the landmark case affirming a constitutional right to abortion in the United States—was overturned by the Supreme Court. In this precious moment for reproductive rights, Pearls, Pills & Protests is a timely celebration of progressive artwork that advocates for women’s health and safety.
Though every artist is unique in her approach, each work in this exhibition challenges historic symbols of feminine gentility and conservatism, repurposing those symbols as inspiration and material for expressing modern ideas. Kelly Tapìa-Chuning transcribes problematic “truisms”—repeated to generations of women to define societal expectations and norms—into soft pink text that is needle-felted by hand. On the floor of the gallery, visitors will encounter Kelly’s pink American flag entitled What is Respect, an interactive piece encouraging people to walk across the flag in solidarity with women who are directly affected by the overturning of Roe v. Wade—wearing down the flag with every step. Lulu Varona revives her grandmother’s embroidery techniques to ornament fabric with progressive phrases written in Spanish like “Women should live in peace, happiness, and without fear.”
Michele Pred has created a large sculpture entitled Abortion is Healthcare featuring the Mifepristone and Misoprostol abortion pills. This piece is meant to draw attention to abortion rights in the United States. The exhibition will also showcase three handbags from Michele’s renowned “Power of the Purse” series. These purses are adorned with phrases in neon light such as “Equality,” “My Body My Choice,” and “Vote” and are intended to serve as small-scale political billboards. Michele’s artwork Sexual Revolution is a quilt from the 1960s that features a kaleidoscopic pattern adorned with 140 packs of birth control pills (totaling 3,920 pills). Jerelyn Hanrahan reclaims the pearl necklace from the nape of the 1950’s housewife, stringing colossal and lustrous orbs of spun aluminum to create a modern power symbol. Through tapestry, embroidery, quilting, and beading, each of these women weaves their personal experiences, history, and ancestry into artworks of conceptual force.
Extending her fight for women’s rights into the art and design worlds, Lisa Perry, founder of Onna House, has purchased work from each artist in the exhibition, committed to financially investing in the careers of women artists. Through Pearls, Pills & Protests, Onna House strives to offer time and space to further a dialogue around women’s rights that is simultaneously personal and political.
About Onna House
Housed in a Japanese modernist 1960s residence in the center of East Hampton, Onna House is a sanctuary filled with art, furniture, and objects by women artists and designers. With a dual mission to support and create visibility for these artists and provide a gallery space to display their work, founder Lisa Perry combines her passions under one roof to carefully curate the private home and studio, acting as a space for women artists to engage and collaborate and for collectors to discover new work.
