Allyson Mitchell

The Fluff Stands Alone

Jan 30-Feb 28, 2004

Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present The Fluff Stands Alone, an exhibition of new multi-media works by Toronto artist and filmmaker Allyson Mitchell.

The Fluff Stands Alone, Allyson Mitchell's first solo exhibition since the dissolution of legendary Toronto art collective Bucky and Fluff's Craft Factory, is a series of fun fur creations based on erotica and “dirty joke” cartoons from the 1970's heyday of Playboy Magazine. Recasting these familiar images in her own inimitable, fat-positive, third wave feminist, sexy style, Mitchell re-orders the original intent of the graphics - from misogynist, chauvinist one- liners meant to entertain lonely middle-aged straight men, to Large and In Charge, sexy mamma portraits carved in shimmering, campy fun fur.

Mitchell explains the impetus for The Fluff Stands Alone:

“The first time I ever saw a naked woman was when I babysat for a family that owned The Playboy Golden Anthology of Cartoons. With my bowl of chips, my Pepsi, and the Love Boat on television, I would gaze at these large, voluptuous women with wonder and shock. Who were these beautiful, busty women, and why were they being drooled on by ugly old men with cigars? The irony was not apparent to me until adulthood - these women are sexy, but the situation is not (for me, at least). So now, I've given the lovely ladies a space of there own, and a texture - the delicious, purr-inducing feel of fun fur"

The Fluff Stands Alone also includes two series of limited editions: 30 “noodle art” silk screened prints of line drawings based on the original Playboy “nudies,” reworked to resemble classic 1970's Doodle Art craft kits; plus a series of woodgrain-print MacTac collages of nudies, based on images culled from Mitchell's extensive collection of 1970's erotic cartoons. Mitchell has also created two one-of-a-kind bedspreads decorated with fun fur quilted appliques of large lady odalisques.