Fiona Alison Duncan’s article “Pippa: Queen of the Future” will be about the trans-disciplinary artist Pippa Garner in relation to art and to queer and feminist histories. Bolstered by unrestricted access to the artist’s archives and to the artist herself, the article will explore Garner’s decision to maintain a self-proclaimed “outsider” status, reflecting on the power and perils of working between industries, mediums, and genders. Duncan will begin by looking at Garner’s practice as it pivots between illustration, industrial design, fashion, television, and fine art, and will document Garner’s transition as one of many experiments the artist has performed on her own body, as with her trompe l’oeil tattoos, to stand as art. Duncan’s article will also speak to the myriad ways younger generations of artists and activists are newly discovering and engaging with Garner’s work and with Garner as a person. Today, she lives a relatively private life in Long Beach, California. A selected Pippa Garner retrospective is on view at JOAN gallery in Los Angeles until December 18, 2021.
Fiona Alison Duncan is a Canadian-American writer, artist, and organizer. Duncan’s debut novel, Exquisite Mariposa (Soft Skull Press, 2019), was awarded a 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction. Writing at the intersection of art, fashion, and literature, Duncan has published her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in Affidavit, CURA., New York Magazine, PIN-UP, Spike, Sternberg Press’s Solution Series, Texte zur Kunst, Various Artists, The White Review, and elsewhere. Duncan is the founder of Hard to Read, a literary social practice centered around live events with select media broadcasts, bookselling, publishing, and exhibitions. Informed by intersectional feminist and queer history, Hard to Read privileges radical voices, interdisciplinary and intergenerational exchange, presence, and the sharing of time and space.