Caoife Power, Lady on fire, 2022. Oil on portrait of lady found on Brunswick St., canvas, 50 x 40 cm. Courtesy of artist.

Lost Girls

Caoife Power

19 Jul–12 Aug 2023

This solo exhibition features my most recent series of paintings with printed lithography. Finding discarded portraits of girls on the streets around Melbourne, I have taken my time to paint over them. Lost girls challenges the subject of the gaze through a world of queer love.

These ‘Lost girls’ are both literal and metaphoric. In straightforward terms they are just discarded paintings. But I can’t help but feel uncanny when walking past - forgotten. What does it mean to leave a girl on the side of the road?

As a lesbian, I feel a sense of responsibility to find a way for these lost girls to come back into life. Repairing their lost identities. How can they be seen again?

Having also been the subject of the gaze, in full view while feeling discarded, I recognise this immediate experience of homophobia, undesired romance manifesting.

In defiance of letting them just sit there, I take the time to paint over them. Each made with tenderness, not to completely conceal their presence, but to redefine their worlds through the action of my own body.

Perhaps this exhibition forms a room of self-portraits. Perhaps they are all lovers. Either way, they form a world of repeated declarations: ‘we’re here, we’re queer’

Lost girls: Letters to my lovers

Saturday 12 August 2-3pm

Lost girls: Letters to my lovers is a queer/ lesbian closing celebration of poetry, chats, readings and art from queer artists and writers: Kari Lee McInneny-McRae, Sunny Morris, Beau Lai, Angela Powell and Emily Kostos, who will each offer their own response to the exhibition.

Free Public Program. All welcome.

Caoife Power, Lost girls zine, 2023.

Room Sheet + List Work

Caiofe Power, Anne Devlin Wild Horse, 2023. Oil, rice paper, lithograph from p.87 Irish Feminist Review 1985 on canvas, 102 x 76cm. Courtesy the artist.

Caoife Power, Róisín, 2023 . Oil, rice paper, lithograph on canvas, 122 x 91cm. Courtesy the artist.

Caife Power, LIL, 2023. Oil on canvas, 102 x 76cm. Courtesy the artist.

Caoife Power, Mona, 2022. Oil on portrait of lady found on Helen St., canvas, 80 x 50cm. Courtesy the artist.

Caoife Power, In the loop, 2023. Oil, rice paper, lithograph of September Polling Station, County Kildare 1983 on canvas, 102 x 76cm. Courtesy the artist.

Caoife Power, Looking glass, 2023. Oil, rice paper, lithograph on canvas, 102 x 76cm. Courtesy the artist.

Caoife Power, Lost girls, Blindside 2023. Photograph Sebastian Kainey. Courtesy the artist.

Exhibition

Overview

Key Dates

Opening: 19 Jul 2023, 8am–10am

Lost girls: Letters to my lovers: 12 Aug 2023, 4am–5am

Acknowledgment

This program takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded - this land is stolen land. We pay respects to Wurundjeri Elders, past, present and emerging, to the Elders from other communities and to any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who might encounter or participate in the program.

Biographies

Caoife Power