September 10, 2025
Higher Than Expected, on display from September 13 at Kenise Barns Fine Art in Kent, brings to life a historical photograph of Lucy Smith and Pauline Ranken in 1908 climbing the Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Barred from joining the men’s climbing club on account of their sex, they defiantly formed the first women’s climbing club in Scotland. As experienced climbers and with only a rope between them for safety, they assumed more dangers than the men, by climbing in “traditional” women’s clothing such as long skirts, hats, and blouses.
Katrina Majkut’s Game Changers, which also opens September 13, celebrates women-identifying athletes and pioneers who have overcome significant bias and discrimination. The portraits celebrate the athletes’ impacts and their leadership roles and references, but rejects the little-known art historical movement of Woman Power Portraits, which dictated that portraits of women in positions of power were only permissible if they mimicked preexisting masculine portrayals or fictional male characters.
Majkut’s approach rejects these limitations, masculine archetypes, and the male gaze. Her goal is to set new representational standards of women in action with self-actualization, power, strength, fortitude, and perseverance. Using glitter, pearls, beads, and embroidery thread, the artist reveals how crafts—still stereotyped by their patriarchal ideas of femininity and domesticity—can be used to represent power and strength.
Both shows open with a reception on September 13 from 4 to 6 pm.
Kenise Barnes Fine Art, 7 Fulling Lane, Kent
