Contemporary Women Artist

Many Contemporary artist left a mark in the present movement of feminism. Women have had to work really hard to be where they are at in the art world. During the early years of art, women were never considered to be artist in a male-dominated society. Women have had to fight all of the stereotypes and the social restriction to be able to present their artistic achievements. They have had to show the male population that they can also draw, sculpt, and perform, just like they can. Women have learned to challenge the male gaze and create the female gaze. These are only five of the many contemporary artist that are still present.
Judy Chicago

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1974

Judy Chicago was one of the contemporary artist who was one of the first pioneer of the feminist art movement of the 1970's. This movement formed the foundation of the reflection of women lives and their contemporary works as artist. It called attention to the women's roles as artist, and it also questioned the male-dominated power. Women became a significant challenge to modernism. Judy's artwork reflects her interest on female subject through her artwork. One of  Judy's most famous art work was The Dinner Party (1974). Through this extraordinary, huge piece of artwork, Judy celebrates the female achievements throughout history. Scandalizing her audience with the vaginal imagery used to represent each of the forty females who have made a significant mark on the women's history of America. This memorial installation celebrates the forgotten achievement of the women's mark on history. Judy embraced her artistic female vision in many ways; not only in her art work, but also through her daily life experience.
Doris Salcedo

Doris Salcedo, Untitled, 1990

Doris Salcedo was another contemporary artist that focused on abstract painting.She was a Latin women from Colombia who earned a BFA at Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano (1980) and a MA at New York University (1984).  She was always made fun of because of her accent when she first started working as an artist. That never stopped her from becoming a radical female artist. Salcedo's artwork embodies the victim of violence and the dis-empowered of the Third World. Her work is abstract and open to interpretation. Her work concertizes absences, the gap between dis-empowered and powerful, and also oppression. Salcedo also uses her work to serve as testimonies of the victims of oppression and perpetrators. Doris Salcedo says that her work reflects "the victim of the senseless and the brutal act."
Shirin Neshat

Sherin Neshat, Turbulent, 1998

Shirin Neshat is an islamic artist. She came to America via her father, and when she came to America she decided to stay in New York. Most of her work resembles her culture back in Islam. Shirin Neshat would always say "you can take a girl out of Islam, but you can't take Islam out of a girl".Her most famous work is called Turbulent, which is a two-channel video installation in which two projectors represent a male and a female. The male artist is singing to a crowd of men and once he stares at the women singer, the women starts to sing a certain kind of scream. This scream represents a type of freedom that a women reaches, how just like men, women can become rebellious and unpredictable in society.
Ghada Amer

Ghada Amer, Eight Women in Black and White, 2004

Ghada Amer is a contemporary Egyptian artist. She is best known for her erotic embroidery which resemble social issue. Some social issues deal with sexuality, female identity, and her Islamic culture. Eight Women in Black and White 2004  is a painting of eight women that refuse to wear the acquire islamic clothing. Amer uses pornographic images as a way to violate conventions of femininity. Her art work is a strategy that she uses to resolve the dis-constructive approaches to feminism. She also portrays her conclusion to the Islamic fundamentalism and growing ideologies of feminism.
Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1964

Yoko Ono is a contemporary artist who illustrated her art work through performance. Well before her partnership with John Lennon, Yoko Ono was a pioneer in performance art . Additionally many of her art work includes instruction. She was a radical women who did not believe that art should be demonstrated only on material objects. Her performance called Cut Piece was one of her most famous performance. She sat in the stage with a scissor next to her and invited her audience to come up and cut pieces of her clothes off. Through this she wants to show how the female body is subjective.

-Arleni Liriano
Work Cited

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. 4th ed. New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Print.