THE POLITICAL APE: LISA ROET’S PROJECT
To begin with the jewellery is to begin with the personal, as the personal and the intimate illuminate Lisa Roet’s work.
The surface texture of the gilded abstract neck pieces, rings and bangles is the texture of Orang-utan or Gorilla skin, to be worn on human skin. A Gibbon hand becomes a cuff, or a choker. An ape’s hand around a neck adds the ambiguity of human/ape relationship to the politics of decoration. Women and apes were, and are, trophies: women decorated with jewellery, but this jewellery is not wildly expensive. One could buy earrings or cufflinks
