POISONOUS REVENGE NARRATIVES by Susan Montgomery FALL 2024
ARTIST'S STATEMENT A MATTER OF DOSE
Navigating the line between medicine and poison has always been tricky. Historically, women have transformed household botanicals into vital remedie s and fatal toxics to shape the fate of their own liv es.
Fatal Flora: Poisonous Revenge Narratives asks how, in the hands of knowledgeable women, the natural world can be transformed from medicinal to murderous in a pinch, dash, or splash of ingredient s. Artist in Residence, Susan Montgomery, blends history, memory, and the imagination on her canvases to recall real and mythical women who change their lives by harnessing the powers of the natural world.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Susan Montgomery teaches drawing in the Smith College Department of Art. She is a recipient of th e Blanch E. Coleman Award, Mellon Foundation Grant, and a Sustainable Artist Foundation Grant. She has exhibited at venues including the Fuller Art and Cr aft Museum, Lyman Museum of Springfield History at the Springfield Quadrangle Museums, Five College Women’s Resource Center at Mount Holyoke College, Historic Northampton Museum, A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery and the Trustman Gallery at Simmons University.
Learn more about her work: www.susanmontgomeryart.com
The distinction between healing and harming is a matter of dose. As the primary physicians and pharmacists of their households in the early modern period, women possessed the plant knowledge that separated damage from remedy, and on occasion, accident from design.
Belladonna / “Deadly Nightshade”: This toxic perennial plant has long been used in medicines and poisons. In the 17th century, it was also used in cosmetics to reduce redness and swelling.
Hemlock: Although all of its parts are poisonous, the roots and seeds of hemlock are more toxic than the leaves. Sometimes confused for Queen Anne’s Lace, this flowering plant was used medicinally as a sedative or to relieve joint pain.
Opium Poppy: Used in medicines for pain relief and to induce sleep, the toxins found in this plant are extremely poisonous and can cause convulsions, asphyxiation, and death.
Thornapple / “Devil’s Trumpet”: Medicinally, thornapple can reduce inflammations of all kinds. However, it is highly poisonous, as well as psychoactive. It can cause respiratory issues, delirium, psychosis, and death if taken internally.
Wolfsbane / “Queen of Poisons”: Used medicinally as a sedative and fever reducer, a very small amount of wolfsbane can cause respiratory paralysis and even heart failure.