ARTIST STATEMENT
My piece is a commentary on the long ratification history of the ERA. In the 1980’s women were still fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment to be ratified on a state by state basis (Illinois ratified the ERA amendment in 1982). The ERA was finally written into the United States Constitution on January 17th, 2025 but still needs implementation and ratification. My “GoGo Male Handling Mitts” were concept companions to a piece I made in 1984. “Two Piece Red Felt Suit” is a fabric and neon installation created for the street level windows of the historic Monadnock Building. At the time I had plans to create a pair of boxing gloves for my conceptional feminist champion’s wardrobe, but the mitts were never actualized.
Despite the persistent glass ceiling that women continue to struggle against, some forty years later and the events of this past year have motivated me to create and complete those mitts. They await our champion’s spirit, which is manifested in each one of us for equality and personal freedom. Now more than ever, activism, legal action and public pressure are needed to ensure that the ERA’s protections become a proven reality.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kim Laurel is an artist and graphic designer originally from Cleveland, Ohio. She studied at Oberlin College, The Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland State University and received her Masters Degree from Illinois State University. She has exhibited her work internationally, her works are part of both public and private collections and is represented by the Workshop Print Gallery – Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, Il. Kim teaches public and private classes in monoprint, collagraph, collage and specialty techniques on a per-request basis at the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative and is one of the original CPC members (since 1989). She is a long standing member of Woman Made Gallery, the Mid America Print Council, the Elmhurst Artist’s Guild and the Chicago Artistʼs Coalition. Her work was included in the 2015 exhibitions and publications: “Convergence: The Poetic Dialogue Project” at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and “City Creatures” at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum with the publication “City Creatures” by the Center for Humans and Nature, University of Chicago Press.
In 2016 her works were featured in the group exhibition “Serial and Sequential: A Printmaker’s Performance” at Argonne National Laboratory. In 2019 the one person exhibition, Kim Laurel: Allegories of Nature, was mounted at the Union League Club of Chicago. Kim Laurel and Fletcher Hayes co-curated This Living Earth: Our Shared Gaia at the Beverly Art Center in 2024. She has exhibited with the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative at EXPO Chicago multiple times.
© Kim Laurel