Lily van der Stokker

Practicing what she calls a “non-shouting feminism,” Lily van der Stokker broaches topics like domestic labor and emotion in softly colored wall drawings, works on paper, and installations. “I choose my subject matter from topics apparently ‘forbidden’ in contemporary conceptual art, like family life, optimism, and sweetness,” she has said. By taking this radical position, she makes work that is “approachable and controversial at the same time.” Initially trained in drawing and textiles, van der Stokker moved to New York in 1981 and was exposed to the feminist practices of artists such as Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Embracing feminist messages and maintaining their seriousness, she began presenting them in pastel pinks, yellows, and blues and in materials evocative of craft, rendering the ideas friendly but no less provocative.