Roil Rogue

Amy Cutler's drawings gained popularity in the late 1990s for their ability to tease out sinister qualities in fairytale-inspired scenes, often emphasizing the macabre dimension of female domesticity within these folk traditions. Roil Rogue is no different, depicting four female figures in elaborate Victorian attire with teapots for heads--a not-so-subtle commentary on the commodification of female labor. While Cutler's figures appear at first to be the customarily vivacious attendants of a Victorian household, closer examination reveals that the lovable foxes at their feet are in fact attacking them. This work emblematizes Cutler's eclectic borrowing from disparate visual traditions--the moralizing paintings of William Hogarth and the fairytale illustrations of John Tenniel, to name two--to expose traces of the grotesque within traditionally-accepted artistic modes.