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My Favourite Women in Art

Awe Inspiring Female Artists We live in a patriarchal society, that is a fact. That the art world is a man’s world is also a fact. However, since the 60’s, corresponding with the so called second rise of the feminist movement, the Feminist art movement has brought more visibility to women within art history and […]

1st March 2012/by Studio Damoah

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Love in Art. A personal Perspective.

Love is… Love, such a simple word, yet a word which has so many different connotations for different people. A word that has fascinated humans for a millennia and inspired so much beautiful art all over the world. Love, passion, desire, lust, longing. Before I even understood what those things were, Frida Kahlo taught me […]

3rd February 2012/by Studio Damoah

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My Favourite Women in Art

1st March 2012/by Studio Damoah

Media & links

Love in Art. A personal Perspective.

3rd February 2012/by Studio Damoah

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My Favourite Women in Art

Awe Inspiring Female Artists

We live in a patriarchal society, that is a fact. That the art world is a man’s world is also a fact. However, since the 60’s, corresponding with the so called second rise of the feminist movement, the Feminist art movement has brought more visibility to women within art history and art practice. The effects of the Feminist art movement can still be felt today with female artists who empower themselves by unapologetically visually representing the female experience through their work. Here are three of my favourite female artists of all time.

Renee Cox

Renee Cox, a Jamaican American mixed media artist is described in her biography as one of the most “controversial African-American artists working today.” Born in 1960 in Jamaica, Cox uses her own body to critique what she sees as an inherently sexist and racist society while simultaneously celebrating what it means to be a black woman. Unafraid to confront sexist and racist stereotypes, Cox for me embodies everything that I would like to be in her confrontational social commentary. One of her most controversial series of works to date entitled “Flipping the Script,” involved Cox’s reinterpretations of religious art with contemporary black figures. The most controversial of the photographs in a series entitled “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” was shown at the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 2001. Cox reinterpreted Da Vinci’s Last Supper as a photograph of a nude Cox as Jesus Christ in the centre, with black disciples all around her, apart from Judas, who was depicted as a white man. When New York Mayor Rude Guiliani called for such works “not to be shown in a museum that regularly received public funding”, her response was as follows:

“I have the right to reinterpret the Last Supper as Leonardo Da Vinci created the Last Supper with people who look like him. The hoopla and the fury are because I am a black woman. It’s about me having nothing to hide.” (From www.reneecox.org)

Challenging inspirational and unreservedly unapologetic. Love her.

Renee Cox. Your Mamma’s Last Supper 1996. Copyright Renee Cox.

Nancy Spero (1926-2009)

Nancy Spero was an American visual artist and activist whose career lasted for 50 years. According to the Michigan Chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art’s Official Blog, when discussing the sexism evident in the art world, Spero once said,

“I’ve always sought to express a tension in form and meaning in order to achieve a veracity. I have come to the conclusion that the art world has to join us, women artists, not we join it. When women are in leadership roles and gain rewards and recognition, then perhaps ‘we’ (women and men) can all work together in art world actions.”

The PBS series Art21 (Art in the 21^st Century) website describes Spero’s work as follows:

“… an unapologetic statement against the pervasive abuse of power, Western privilege, and male dominance.”

Nancy Spero. Segment of -Torture of Women 1976.

Spero’s work was mostly executed on paper and in large public installations world wide. Using women as protagonists, Spero’s work focused on reinforcing her principles of equality and tolerance by drawing on historical events as well as contemporary news for inspiration including the extermination of Jews in the Holocaust, the torture of women in Nicaragua and the atrocities of the Vietnam war. Embarrassingly for me, I only became aware of Nancy Spero some time in 2004 when I was making the decision to become an artist. My research lead me to two of her most memorable works for me personally, Torture in Chile (1974) and the long scroll, Torture of Women (1976, 20 inches x 125 feet). Both depicted the horror and brutality inflicted on women using real oral accounts of torture taken from Amnesty International reports- the works represented previously invisible histories of real women and wove them with real events happening at that time. Spero died of heart Failure in 2009 at the age of 83.

Nancy_Spero. Segment of Torture of women 1976

Wangechi Mutu

Born in 1972 in Kenya, Wangechi Mutu is a new favourite artist of mine. Mutu currently lives and works in New York. In her bio published on the Saatchi Gallery website, Mutu observes,

“Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body.”

I couldn’t agree with her more. Mutu intuitively expresses this opinion by piecing together painted surfaces with contemporary magazine images and found objects to create beautiful and intricate works which reference fashion, African politics cultural history and colonial identity. Essence magazines feature “10 Female Artists You Should Know About,” referred to her work as work which explores female sexuality and the myths surrounding African women as “wild and exotic.” Time Out New York described her work as “Divine and Decadent.”

Wangechi Mutu untitled. 2003

The piece that speaks the most to me by far is “Complete Prolapsus of the Uterus” 2004- Glitter, ink collage on found medical illustration paper…

wangechi mutu complete prolapsus of the uterus. 2004. Glitter Ink collage on found medical illustration paper. copyright wangechi mutu

Here, I have presented scant details of just three awe inspiring female artists who influence me personally. There are thousands of female artists making relevant (but unrecognised) contributions to art history through their work. I sincerely hope that one day, preferably during my life time, I wake up to find that the art world has morphed into something for talented artists of all backgrounds and races, that truly represents what Nancy Spero imagined when she said,

“When women are in leadership roles and gain rewards and recognition, then perhaps ‘we’ (women and men) can all work together in art world actions.”

Thank you Sophia Jackson! This article will be published in the March Goddess edition of Lime Magazine. http://www.comelime.com/

1st March 2012/by Studio Damoah

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Love in Art. A personal Perspective.

Love, passion, desire, lust, longing. Before I even understood what those things were, Frida Kahlo taught me how one could use art to externalise them, to express them in a visual way. I remember studying her work at GCSE level, at about the age of 15. I was fascinated and astounded by her ability to punctuate all of her life experiences, the painful and the joyful in such a beautiful way through her work. She was a woman of great passion with many lovers, both male and female, but the one person who always showed up in her work was the great love of her life, Diego Rivera. She was his “chicuita” (little one) and he was her frog prince. Their turbulent yet deeply affectionate and passionate relationship influenced a lot of her work. For me, some of her best pieces are those which are about him or their relationship in some way. Those pieces speak deeply about their relationship which was so much a part of her life and her being.

Diego and I – 1949 Frida Kahlo

Consciously or unconsciously, Kahlo’s way of depicting that love has had a profound effect on the way in which I chose to depict or express my own feelings about my personal relationships.

Frida Kahlo Diego on My Mind. Self portrait as Tehuana. 1943

During my first relationship, in my late teens, my boyfriend asked me what it felt like to be in love with him. We thought we were deeply in love you see! Mainly because my father was not a fan of the idea of his daughter entering into a relationship, but that is another story. Forbidden love, always inspires such exaggerated intense emotions. We thought we were a modern day Romeo and Juliet, well at least I did! We would meet in secret, but my dad always found out. Oh the drama! It is funny when I think back on it now, but at the same time, what I came up with astounded him and me, as I did not realise my imagination could produce what it did. I made a painting of my own stomach. Looking at the painting, it was as if my own hands were opening up my belly to reveal a head with two laughing mouths and wings for ears about to fly out of the belly which was heaving with the fire of our passion! There were two humans facing each other, joined at the head, arms and feet representing myself and my forbidden lover. I still have the painting. My description of it probably sounds ghastly to some, but he loved it and he kept it until we broke up, when he kindly gave it back to me. Fast forward to the first real love I experienced as an adult and every significant relationship I have had since then, has been punctuated by some piece of art work. This was not something I consciously made an effort to do. If someone moved me to the point where I felt passionate love for them, I was always moved to draw, to paint, it was almost a compulsion. It was as if I had to. Not always something abstract, like the first one, but always something which represented how I felt about them.

Love. 2005. Adelaide Damoah. Abstract series

Love drove me to produce the majority of the works in my abstract series of works. Obsessive love, rejection, pain and passion inspired me to produce the dark Black Lipstick series.

Danad. 2008. Abstract series

Black Lipstick number 5. 2008. Adelaide Damoah

Love, one of the most powerful, mystical and puzzling of all human emotions, can drive people to acts of compassion and selflessness when reciprocated, but when lost, or unrequited, can drive seemingly insane acts of obsession and completely reckless behaviour. It is amazing to me that when channelled, this same emotion can inspire some of the most beautiful art known to man kind.

Thanks to Sophia from Lime magazine. This piece will be published in the February Love edition on sale February 2012.

3rd February 2012/by Studio Damoah

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My Favourite Women in Art

Love in Art. A personal Perspective.

My Favourite Women in Art

Love in Art. A personal Perspective.

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My Favourite Women in Art

Love in Art. A personal Perspective.

Adelaide Damoah

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