"I won all three titles at Wimbledon…and I came back to my country, and there was no one there to meet me, no one at all." - Billie Jean King A technically accomplished painter, Erskine presents a chapter of her ongoing research into the iconography of sports figures as related to feminism and spectacle. “Battle of the Sexes” presents a mythological battle, an imagined competition between American sports pop-culture icons Mary Lou Retton and Billie Jean King. Retton epitomizes the Cold War, Reagan-era heroine, a pint-size gymnastic force; the false exuberance and canned patriotism that accompanied her fame are set against Billie Jean King's unsung accomplishments as a dominant, feminist, and distinctively independent force in the world of tennis. Intended as a response to the sheer lack of historical archives of King's career, accomplishments, and dominance on the tennis court, the exhibition speaks to the concepts of lack, loss, and silence as they relate to King’s accomplishments and presence. For example, although tennis was not a major sport, King was not conventionally "feminine" in the ways women athletes were expected to be, and was very outspoken about equal pay for equal play —the same prize money for men and women at tennis tournaments.
Cara Erskine is an artist based in Pittsburgh, PA. She earned an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2002. In January 2010, she will present a solo exhibition of new paintings at the Moreau Galleries, Saint Mary's College, in South Bend, Indiana. An educator and curator, Erskine is an adjunct professor of painting at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Her work has been exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and London. In 2009, Pittsburgh Magazine named Erskine one of forty individuals recognized as contributing to the greater Pittsburgh community.
