I Want Kids

Using media associated with craft and domesticity, Lara Schnitger’s portrayals of cultural stereotypes are constructed as homespun ‘truths’, made insidiously endearing through their beguiling materials. Standing as aggrandised puppets, her figures confront societal labels, often with a sharply feminist slant. These abstracted fabric forms sit uneasily as both sculpture and costume design, creating monstrous caricatures of the most unsavoury types. I Want Kids lures with cuddly toy seduction, a goofy monster decked out in strident blue plaid, its hairy third leg an appalling playpen appendage. Outrageously deviant, Schnitger’s sculpture doesn’t downplay the horror of paedophilia, but rather questions the too-easy public perception of predators. In wry Brass Eye style, Schnitger addresses our darkest fears and taboos. ‘If you want to sit at home and paint and do weird perverse stuff, please do it on a sculpture. Don’t do it on women on the street. You feel like groping? Grope a sculpture. That’s the great thing about art. You can use it to interact with some of your anger.’