In her seminal 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”, Linda Nochlin tells the story of Thomas Eakins’ life-class at the Pennsylvania Academy in the middle of the nineteenth century – instead of using a nude man for a women’s still life class, a live cow was placed in the middle of the room and served as the model for the female students.

The female image in art history as it relates to the female artist is a counterfeit reality of representation. Women are represented in art history not as makers or creators, but as reclining, nude figures endlessly enduring the male painterly gaze.

The collaged fabric in Ersatz is a new representation of female artists in art history, a simulacrum, an ersatz reality. The forms used in this work are taken from paintings, sculptures and photographs, turned into digitalised pictures, items and images and ultimately become giant illustrative collages on pieces of fabric. These things are transformed from heavy to hard to soft, making the final product something wholly removed from the original.

Grace Wood is an artist from Narrm (Melbourne), Australia. She received her Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2014. Grace creates collage-based installations that anatomise eccentricities of the internet archive, sybaritic notions of elitist art history, and anachronistic displays of the contemporary photographic document. Grace has exhibited extensively in Australia and her work is held in public and private collections nationally. Some recent exhibitions include Looking but not seeing, Benalla Art Gallery, VIC, 2018; There is a pain – so utter, Gertrude Glasshouse, VIC, 2018; Last Drinks, LON Gallery, VIC, 2018; SATURATED: SATURATION, Sister Gallery, SA, 2017; Is this necessary?, Cut Thumb Laundry QLD, 2017 and Like a Hasselblad on the moon, West Space, VIC, 2017. Grace is represented by LON Gallery, Melbourne.