Thursday 12 October 2017

Fruit Drawers: Olivia Brazier

When Adam bit the apple he demonstrated a deplorable lack of willpower, but it was Eve and her daughters who were blamed. Such wicked women, enticing men with their juicy melons and firm peaches.

Olivia Brazier makes humorous use of these and other food metaphors for the female body in her current exhibition Fruit Drawers. But there's serious depth to the innuendo-laden imagery too. This is feminist art, funny and clever in its exploration of the objectification of women.

Brazier works predominantly in collage and painting and this new exhibition combines the two techniques. Her work juxtaposes nude figures and images of food from supermarket catalogues, posing the question, where do you draw the line between hunger and sexual appetite?

I was particularly struck by Blue Balls, in which a nude female reclines as if on a quilt of berries at the centre of a matrix. She appears to be captured in a web, a fruity fly soon to be consumed by a rapacious spider.

The exhibition includes selected paintings from previous shows too, which use Brazier's trademark linear forms. One new work in this style stands out; a large green canvas, criss-crossed horizontally with diverging white lines, and dissected top to bottom by vivid pink lines that yell at the viewer to Fork Off.

Fruit Drawers closes on Friday 13 October, and visitors are welcome to attend in the evening from 18:30 to 21:00 (see below for location). Hopefully it won't be too long before Olivia returns to the Riviera.

High Peels 2017

Check out Olivia Brazier's work at:


Fruit Drawers exhibition, 10-13 October 2017:
  • Comite National Monegasque de l'AIAP de l'UNESCO
    10 quai Antoine 1er
    Monaco MC98000
    +377 97 70 26 72

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