Emma Cousin. Leg Up

About

Using the body as a metaphor, and emphasising the role that the body plays in processing and defining our experiences, Cousin’s paintings present a pantheon of women performing everyday gestures to address notions of time, aging, strength, inertia and vulnerability.

Cousin’s darkly comic and irreverent parade of female characters are pulled and twisted into impossible bodily contortions, balancing the weight of gravity with a lightness extending from their mix-and-match body parts. Exploring concepts of freedom and identity, they inhabit precarious situations and engage in awkward activities, such as urinating in a cup in the backseat of a speeding car (Peeing at 80), or teetering precariously on high heels while juggling groceries in Purchase. Running Scared depicts a wave of ‘hysterical women’ seeming to hold one another up as they launch themselves across the canvas, away from or towards we don’t know what. Nor do we know how dependable matters are underfoot, as Cousin’s figures act on surfaces ranging from concrete to butter. Through the theme of mobility, Cousin balances weight and agility to propose that a persistent psychological anxiety, experienced through the body, is our frontline experience of the world.