OPENING NIGHT: FRIDAY 6 SEP 6-8.30PM 4 Years in 40 Postcards explores the experience of gender-based emotional manipulation by pairing notes from the artist’s colleague with painted images of women from fashion magazines. The images on the postcards depict the idealized visions of female beauty and power against which women measure themselves, and, at first, the beautiful forms and colours appear inviting, and the postcards suggest a nostalgic sense of connection. But there is something uncanny about the way the women hang in space, and the viewer quickly finds herself surrounded by demands and expectations, evoking the feelings of powerlessness, exhaustion, and guilt that such seemingly innocuous messages evoke for women when experienced in aggregate and against the background of particular ideals. That which appears innocuous in isolation relies on powerful gender norms to function as an invisible goad that urges a woman back into line. By using personal messages and cultural imagery to dictate the viewer’s movement through space, the installation replicates the complex emotional web that constrains women’s movements, both physically and symbolically.