NEWS: Lex Randolph’s Human Becomings opens Friday at Paper Mountain

Opening this weekend at Paper Mountain, Human Becomings by multidisciplinary artist Lex Randolph explores the intersection of body, gender and identity through an array of flesh-tone textiles, fabrics and watercolours in a museum of real and imaginary body parts.

Ideas and work from Randolph’s residency at Paper Mountain last year come to fruition in the current exhibition, and he uses himself and his personal understanding of the fluidity of gender and the body to open a dialogue.

Randolph says his aim is to take a light-hearted approach to this conversation on the body, and that “it’s not just an issue for people who are transgender, it’s a gentle form of activism.”

The exhibition becomes a museum of curiosities and specimens, with soft fabrics stored in jars in a slightly detached, scientific but still humorous arrangement. “Separating it and putting it on a shelf in a jar enables us to look at more critically. It takes away some of the emotion in order to look at the parts in a very scientific, factual way,” he says.

The exhibition opens on Friday 10 March at 6pm and will run from 11 – 26 March at Paper Mountain, with an artist talk on Saturday 18 March at 1pm, followed by a workshop on the same date from 2-4pm. Paper Mountain is open daily from 9:30am to 5pm.

For more information about Lex Randolph, the exhibition, and the ideas it explores, visit his website here, or the Paper Mountain website here.