ARTSFIELD 2025

About Red Flag
We say, women are mysterious. Who can understand them? Is it her time of the month? What is the purpose of the clitoris? How many holes down there? Do we know enough about women’s bodies to control them through legislation?

This is what I am thinking about in my studio. How can visual language nudge curiosity? Paleolithic figures with well-articulated vulvas take no pain to hide their sexuality while most American kids are raised with a stork. We don’t know where we came from. This drawing, titled, Red Flag, has America’s flag hung upside down, shaped to resemble St Mary or a vulva - the visual kinship is kinda humorous. Google it.

But whatever shape you read, the American flag is monumental, centered, and obviously revered, and then “vulva education” is read, right there in the center of the format. The word vulva is so rarely used, that many Americans are not able to differentiate between vulva and vagina. Do you know the difference? Do you know why the difference is important?

My pencil paintings use the tools: pencils, erasers, claybord, a drawing of shallow space. This lack of depth allows things like the wallpaper to assert its presence, it is visually raising questions about rankings. “female rights” nearly erased demonstrates visual and verbal language working together to make a point.

My method with these tools weaves a process of layers, grounded with time so that the last mark made is indiscernible. Yet, the history of all marks are deeply embedded - just like American history.

I’m Kiki Farish, born and raised in Jacksonville, FL. The youngest of 4, the baby - often called cry baby. My family was influenced by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the energy crisis, the feminist movement, Civil rights, Earth Day, just past, began in 1970. Yes, we composted, reused, and recycled back then.

I’ve lived in NC most of my life, but I share my earliest times because I see history repeating itself, but this time with an awareness of how patriarchal constructs marginalize women and children. That’s a red flag!

I invite you to go to The Continuum to see Red Flag, then let me know what questions or thoughts this drawing provokes in you.