5 Female Artists

Art is not something that is pretty and just to see, many times it tackles a deeper issue. Many of us can easily name male artists -- Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo, etc -- and when pushed to think of female artists, at most people can name Frida Kahlo, maybe. From before the middle ages, women have fought in the art world: first to be able to be apart of it, and now to be known. Groups like the Guerrilla Girls try to fight this with art and books,

Guerrilla Girls, The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art, 1998

but it is still to no avail.

Guerrilla Girls, Report Card, 1986

Regardless, numerous artists fight back so that they can be featured in exhibits and spread their message. For many of them it is that women are no longer to be viewed as the subservient, lesser gender! (and that they are artists, not woman/female artists)

Nona Faustine is an American photographer who we saw during out museum trip during class. Her project, White Shoes, addresses slavery, gender, and the female body. Many of the photographs featured her naked body which was quite jarring because she is a larger woman. This reminded me of group one's project when they presented about the plus sized instagram model.

Nona Faustine, Over my Dead Body, 2013

The average dress size of women in America is 14, yet the women featured in pop culture do not represent this. Body image is a large issue for women, and having work like circulating can be good for women to see.

One of my personal favorite artists is Chitra Ganesh, who I discovered from the book the professor gave me. She is a multimedia visual artist. She is an American born with parents who immigrated from India. Her works are influenced by European fairytales, imperialism, and Hindu/Buddhist fables. 

Chitra Ganesh, Tales of Amnesia, 2002

The Unknowns explores the relationship between anonymity, mass-mediated images, and the monumental, in the construction of a feminine iconography. Ganesh collages and appropriates materials from divergent sources, including 1960s-70s B-grade movies, 19th century orientalist painting, documentary photography of sex workers and mid-century studio photography in India. Sculptural elements, extracted from objects of daily life (shower curtains, fake hair, automotive glass, etc), suggest an entangling of the mythic feminine and everyday material culture.

India is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women, and the society there views women in a derogatory fashion, and treats them like dirt. Ganesh retaliates against this by creating work that features strong women.

Another exhibit we saw on our trip to the museum was Tatyana Fazlalizadeh's Stop Telling Women to Smile. Fazlalizadeh's work brings attention to the street harassment that women face so often. This project was so successful it reached an international scale. 

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh's Stop Telling Women to Smile, 2012 

I cannot tell you how many times some random man has told me I'd look prettier if I smiled or to smile or etc. Once, when I was driving with my windows open, a man catcalled me when I was at a red light and when I ignored him, he began to approach me. I have not driven with the windows down since. Numerous women have stories like this, and Fazlalizadeh's work calls attention to that.

The work attempts to address gender based street harassment by placing drawn portraits of women, composed with captions that speak directly to offenders, outside in public spaces.

One of the first artist you introduced us to was Mickalene Thomas. She draws from popular culture and her art cover sexuality, race, gender, and femininity. She uses paints, and most notably rhinestones to create her art. 

Mickalene Thomas, A Little Taste Outside of Love, 2008

This piece is largely about gender identity. Her signature works are medium-sized panels of black women in 70s attire in a setting one could find in advertisements in back issues of Ebony magazine, exuding sexuality and power.

Finally there is Kara Walker who is a contemporary artist. This has nothing to do with my thesis but my favorite piece in the entire class was done by her, and that is

Kara Walker, A Subtlety, 2014

For a long time, art used to intimidate me. I thought it was for fancy people who wore monocles and had tea parties. In my mind, I was not good enough to be apart of this seemingly exclusive class of society. So it was easier to be among those who made fun of it or come up with excuses to just not go to an art museum, even though I lived literally 20 minutes away from one.

But I should not have written off this entire section as elitist, because this class has opened my eyes to so many badass artists and art museums no longer seem so far away. This mentality kept me from so many experiences and a world of art that I could have been enjoying sooner