Terminal kitchen

In this large drawing a kitchen bench top has come to life. Electric coils rear up like serpents, flames and steam pour out of appliances, and a strange creature seems to be crawling out of the drainpipe.

Sylvia Siddell was interested in the European tradition of vanitas painting - where ordinary, familiar objects are full of meaning, tainted with the threat of death and decay. This uncanny scene also expresses Siddell's feminism. She wrote about the shock of being “suddenly treated as a home appliance” after having children and used her drawings to express frustrations with housework, and the restrictive domestic lives of women. In this drawing, the labour of cooking, cleaning and care has become a beast on the rampage, threatening to overwhelm the house and the viewer.

Sylvia Siddell (1941-2011) was largely self-trained as an artist. After finishing high school she worked as teacher for 15 years. During this period she took summer schools and night classes with artists like Colin McCahon and Louise Henderson, and painted in her spare time. When Siddell had children, she stopped working as a teacher and started to spend more time as an artist. Increasingly interested in drawing, she began to draw intricate, fantastical domestic scenes. She wrote in 1984: “I had painted before, but now found the simple materials of pencil and paper easier to cope with. I became a bit obsessed with the medium – seeing how far I could push it.” (Auckland Art Gallery Associates newsletter, July/Sept 1984).