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Maise Broadhead lives and works in London. She graduated in 2009 from the Royal College of Art with a MA in Jewellery. a signature work from her new sries is included in “Open Spaces - Mind Maps”, a exhibition at the National museum, Stolkholm, Sweden from March - May this year. The artist has also exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria Australia, Design Museum London, National Gallery London, Caixa Forum Barcelona and CaixaForum Madrid. Broadhead won the prestigious Jerwood Makers Open in 2013. In 2014, she received a grant from the Arts Council England for a large public commission at the Brighton Pavillion.

The new series explores seventeenth century formal female portraiture. A: the time, portraits were often commissioned by privileged European families to reveal the beauty of their young daughters before marriage.

They were mostly lavish, opulent images designed to seduce the onlooker and allude to the virtue, dowry and social position of the sitter. The portraits idealised wealth through expensive fabrics and beautiful jewels and beauty was defined through a demure pose and serene facial expression.

Maisie Broadhead appropriates these visual codes of seventeenth century representations to highlight the political and social intentions behind these portraits as well as to consider the role of women in contemporary society.

In many of the 17thC portraits, pearls are featured prominently and play a significant role in constructing the identity of a young woman. They were the most expensive gems of the period, and not only represented wealth but also purity and chastity. Maisie Broadhead studied Jewellery at the RCA with a particular interest inits social history. In this new series of work, the sitters pearls are re-arranged with playful connotations, as a noose around the sitters neck, or tied by a ball and chain. The pearls are often oversized and spill out from the frames.

Medium: Digital C type print, frame and pearls

Dimensions: 72 x 58 x 6cm

Edition of 6

£8,200.00