Two female figures enjoy a sensual embrace amidst a euphoric landscape as their dogs look on and a hat blows away. "Herland" is a homage to the lesbian culture at the heart of the community in Santa Cruz, California, the artist's hometown. The vividness of the colorfield overlays the confident lines of the figures, creating a spacious explosion of energy and sublime expansiveness.
This painting is a pretty loving and restful work, despite its maximalist visual quality. The dog is showing the innocence and purity of love, sensuality, and the interaction between the two human figures.
Ebright Chung connects to and expresses her queer identity through artistic practice, something that struck us deeply at Dotted Line. The featured painting is informed by the artist’s roots in Santa Cruz. It is directly inspired by Herland, the feminist book store that once stood in the city. Herland, full name Herland: The WanderGround, was founded by Kayla Garnet Rose, who discovered feminist bookstores as a Wesleyan student. The name was a mashup of two feminist utopian novels: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1915 "Herland," about an all-female society discovered by three male explorers, and Sally Miller Gearhart's 1978 "The Wanderground," about a community bridging an all-female society and a patriarchal one. Their original motto was "A Feminist Utopia in Your Own Home Town."
