Shannon Tonkin

 

Shannon Tonkin’s work Tootsies and The Original Milky Mama lure the viewer into an intimate universe filled with surreal images of a royal baby getting a pedicure, a pair of drooping floating breasts excreting pearls of milk into a large bottle of gin and a lone hot pink stiletto that sits regally upon a maroon velvet cushion.  Coupled with generous amounts of glitter, beads, gems and lights Tonkin’s work is a loud paean to all that is glamorous and fabulous. On first viewing the audience is bombarded with kitsch y surrealism but on closer inspection the series as a whole is a fractured narrative on motherhood, each work framing a point of action whether it be getting a pedicure or getting milked.

By Patrick Zaia