▶ CAROL MURPHY, 'I GOT HUNGRY'

Left: Carol Murphy, 'I Got Hungry' 2011, ceramic on timber base, 38 x 12 x 10cm
Centre: Josephine Baker in Banana Skirt from the Folies Bergère production "Un Vent de Folie", 1927
Right: illustration by Paul Colin France, 'Josephine Baker' 1927, from Le Tumulte noir (The black craze) portfolio

In her ceramic sculpture 'I Got Hungry', Carol Murphy references the Folies Bergère star Josephine Baker and her infamous banana skirt. In 1926, Baker caused a sensation in Paris with her sexually suggestive 'banana dance', performed wearing little besides the phallic shaped, artificial bananas around her waist. This remarkable woman, who worked as a Nazi spy during the war and an active participant of the American Civil Rights Movement, became a muse for a number of artists and writers.  Murphy's version, showing the figure snacking on her costume, is an ironic twist on the typically sexualised representation of Baker.