Riki Kuropatwa‘s new body of work is currently on view in a solo exhibition at Vancouver’s Elissa Cristall Gallery. The show, entitled derby girlz, chronicles Kuropatwa’s reaction to the rampant oversexualization of women in advertisements. Offering up women in the context of the roller derby rather than the lingerie shoot, the oil stick on panel works depict the same sort of suggestive poses and provocative peaks at bare skin that we might see in Victoria’s Secret ads, but the “derbygirlz ” have traded in their stilettos for skates and tousled Giselle waves for helmet hair. Certainly the works are a comment on the absurdity of the way women are generally portrayed in the media, but if they’re still conveying the same sense of sex appeal–and thereby conjuring the same reaction–in this new context, is the message really clear? In the gallery’s press release, they offer the sentiment that “for every Kate Moss there is a Venus Williams.” Yet the work seems to be a bit more of a satirical look at the sexualized Kate Moss (one piece, Cheeks, is a cropped view of derby racers rounding a corner, though all the viewer sees are bare mid drifts and barely covered butts) rather than a straight-faced attempt at Girl Power a la Venus Williams. Kuropatwa seems to take a dynamic approach to the subject and render it with a soft, feminine-evoking palette and Degas-like interpretation of scenes and forms. derby girlz is on view through June 20, 2009.

Riki Kuropatwa earned an MFA from York University, Toronto, ON and a BFA from the University of Manitoba. She has had solo and group exhibitions across Canada; her work is collected in both Canada and the United States. Kuropatwa lives and works in Edmonton.