Dawn Brayford, Artist, Painting Title: Tribade

A painting produced in my final year at art college, as part of a series of paintings comprised of stenciled patters covering the whole surface, although it is not apparent from this photograph, the pattern is also polished onto the silver surface so as to continue all the way across. This painting was the last in a series which was about the differences within the art school between what was as being 'women's' painting and painting in general, ie, what the male students produced. I used traditionally 'women's' decorative elements such as pattern, and associated it with domestic chores, as in the polishing, but at the same time the painting is oil on canvas, seen at the time as mostly the male domain, especially in the art school I was at at that time. I also associated a gay theme by giving the painting the title 'Tribade', a little known word used for lesbians taken from a Greek word meaning 'to rub', a process also used in polishing.