Photo by:
Nostalgia, comfort and sex all come together in Sarah Gjertson’s exhibit, “Married with Children…Or Not.”
Gjertson, an associate professor at DU who teaches sculpture and 3D art, created a series of artworks that surround her personal experiences and decisions regarding marriage, sex and ultimately having children. “Married with Children…Or Not” is on display at the O’Sullivan Art Gallery at Regis University until April 14.
The exhibit as a whole is overwhelming. There are approximately 400 baby doll heads adorned to one wall, about a dozen ink depictions of sperm and eggs, a wall covered in draping wedding gowns and color-blind illustrations of intercourse positions.
Gjertson is a 41-year-old, heterosexual woman who is not married and currently has no intentions of having children. She feels she has been confronted by society to acknowledge her role in society as being required to procreate.
“‘Married with Children…Or Not” is a pondering of our culture’s expectations of heterosexual marriage procreation as the norm,” said Gjerston.
The center piece to her exhibit is a film created with a Super 8 camera that is a black and white, silent film illustrating a woman in a wedding dress running through nature and various recognizable American landscapes. The film is approximately 20 minutes in length.
“She’s just running and running,” said Gjertson. “You don’t know if she’s running to something or away from something. All you can see is her running past American landmarks and after a while it just becomes really funny.”
Another installation in the exhibit, “Relics,” is composed of large wedding rings made of solid bronze tarnished on the outside to create an antique appearance.
“Engagement rings symbolize commitment within a relationship, and these are made of solid bronze, weighing about 18 pounds each, symbolizing the heavy commitment that an engagement ring bares,” said Gjertson.
The rings are placed on the floor with a sign that encourages the movement and adjustment of the rings by viewers in order for the audience to fully understand the concept of the weight these rings hold, both literally in and out of culture.
The untitled wall of baby doll heads is above all the most creepy and intriguing installment in the exhibit. With thousands of small plastic and glass eyes staring back at the viewer, these heads create a sense of discomfort. As a culture, we are focused on babies and their comfort and their importance in our lives, according to Gjertson. Here Gjertson turns the focus with hundreds of dismembers doll head looking back on us that have been primarily the belongings of young girls.
“I’m most interested in heads that represent infants (without hair) that have blinking eyes and eye lashes, and that have clearly been ‘loved’ in their lifetime,” said Gjertson.
An entire wall in the exhibit is dedicated to used wedding dresses that span from the high ceiling draping to the floor. All of the weddings gowns were found in antique stores and thrift shops.
Gjertson will speak on all of these installations and more included in her “Married with Children…Or Not” exhibit this Wednesday in the Humanities Institute Room, Sturm 286, through the gender and women’s studies department.
