Date: Sunday, October 20
Address: Intersect Arts Center, 3636 Texas Ave, Studio 323, St. Louis, MO, 63118
Media: Installation, Photography, Time-based Media
Studio Features: ADA Accessible, Child-Friendly, Restroom, Refreshments
Taylor Yocom, the champagne is flat, the heart is broken, but it sure is rosy, 2018.Digital photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Bruno David Gallery 
Taylor Yocom, just a ribbon here!, 2019. Digital photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Bruno David Gallery 
Taylor Yocom, we get the rose but we are the ones who deal with the thorns, 2018. Single channel video with sound. Courtesy of the artist and Bruno David Gallery. 
Taylor Yocom, but nice ladies don't talk about that, right?, 2017. Single channel video with sound. Courtesy of the artist and Bruno David Gallery. 
Taylor Yocom, the swans are kissing, the necklace is broken, the rose is dead., 2018. Digital photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Bruno David Gallery. I smash pink harmonicas with pink milkshake glasses and tear pink nametags off of my chest. My work explores and interrogates the gender performativity of female niceness.
Using a sickeningly sweet aesthetic, I subvert this phenomenon using the language women have traditionally been given – flowers, pattern, and an overload of pink. We are taught to smile and nod. We are seen as the comforters. And we say “sorry” too much “and um this really isn’t a big deal,” don’t we?
Femininity is equated with niceness. Niceness is synonymous with being constantly agreeable. Niceness is not speaking your mind. Niceness is possessing low self-confidence. This schema of femininity creates a world in which women must fight to get heard, to push back against harassment and microaggressions – yet are punished if they do.
My moving images and photographs work demonstrate tension in response to this dynamic through uncomfortable moments dripping in pink. A teapot keeps pouring. The cup is spilling over. The cake never makes it to the plates. I violently pull the flower petals off. Through creating disruption in these “nice,” and pink scenes, I call attention to the pervasiveness of the expectation of this singular femininity.
