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Read full article here . Next month, Without Hands: The Art of Sarah Biffin, opens at Philip Mould & Company ... Like contemporary artists such as Yinka Shonibare and Ryan Gander, both wheelchair users, Biffin conquered life-changing physical disability to excel; in a society in which, for disabled women, autonomy was virtually non-existent, she achieved financial independence through much of her life. Artist Alison Lapper, adviser to the exhibition and herself born with phocomelia, the same condition as Biffin, celebrates her as a “formidable artist and a formidable character… a strong, stubborn, single-minded human being”. From the sequence of self-portraits in Mould’s exhibition emerges Biffin’s pugnacious good cheer. Evident, too, is a certain challenge in her very direct gaze. Philip Mould applauds Biffin’s entrepreneurialism as well as her talent, describing her as “a distinguished professional miniaturist, as well a highly adept painter of small-scale still life”. He highlights “her compositions of exotic feathers, which allowed her to demonstrate...
Read full article here.
Next month, Without Hands: The Art of Sarah Biffin, opens at Philip Mould & Company ... Like contemporary artists such as Yinka Shonibare and Ryan Gander, both wheelchair users, Biffin conquered life-changing physical disability to excel; in a society in which, for disabled women, autonomy was virtually non-existent, she achieved financial independence through much of her life. Artist Alison Lapper, adviser to the exhibition and herself born with phocomelia, the same condition as Biffin, celebrates her as a “formidable artist and a formidable character… a strong, stubborn, single-minded human being”. From the sequence of self-portraits in Mould’s exhibition emerges Biffin’s pugnacious good cheer. Evident, too, is a certain challenge in her very direct gaze.
Philip Mould applauds Biffin’s entrepreneurialism as well as her talent, describing her as “a distinguished professional miniaturist, as well a highly adept painter of small-scale still life”. He highlights “her compositions of exotic feathers, which allowed her to demonstrate the full range of her technical mastery”, and attributes renewed interest in her work to her sex rather than her phocomelia. Lapper adds that “she seemed to transcend her disability and almost convince people that this wasn’t what it was all about.” But she cautions that the current focus on Biffin is not proof of significantly increased inclusivity within today’s art world: “I’m still struggling now to break through the same barriers Biffin faced.”
Matthew Dennison
Financial Times
11 October 202
