Female Artists Making an Impact

Tracey Emin The Perfect Place to Grow
There are many female artists that still go unrecognized these days even though we can agree that throughout the years there has been change, but women artists are still on the rise and being ignored. Hopefully the impact of these artists will change the way people not only think of women, but as well as social constructs. One of these artists who is striving to make a change is Tracey Emin. Tracey first begun her work in 1995 on Waterloo Road near London, she named her storefront "Tracey Emin Museum. A Place to Grow". Tracey's work in the beginning mainly followed and showed her life such as her sexuality, past experiences, and her issues from her past as well. In 2001 she made a piece called 'The Perfect Place to Grow" shown above. She wanted to use her artwork as a way to show personal experiences to bring up social changes. This art pieces represents how through her past experiences of being sexually abused, raped, abortion, and alcoholism that every person has room and the ability to grow. Looking closely the ladder reaching to the tiny shack has some randomly thrown on white paint making it look more damaged than new, and the tiny shack looking unfit to house someone. Meaning that yes she may seem as someone who is damaged and possibly unusable but there is always room for growth. Which is what the red flowers represent, that with time one can grow as a person, and that their past will not always reflect who they are as a person. Where as women who were sexually abused or had trauma of past experiences were labelled as a sad woman who could not move on. Tracey wanted to show that we can all move on from our past and grow into a better person, and women shouldn't be targeted or judged from their past.

Shirin Neshat The Last Word 2003

Another female artists who has also made an impact of social construct is Shirin Neshat. Her main focus is on race, and she wants to make a change on the stereotypes made towards Middle Easterners. Her main focus is video, film, and photography surrounding masculinity. Most of her photographs consist of the tension between male and female. In the photo above we see a male and a female sit across each other between a pile of manuscripts unable to read what is on the paper. In this photo you can't see the group of men that stand behind the male. This is meant to represent what her experiences in America have been like. The struggle between man and woman. In almost all of her photos she always represents the woman in black and the male in white, to symbolize the contrast between man and woman. White normally symbolizes purity and black symbolizes corruption. So she wants to show how men represent women as being corrupt when in reality that is just an assumption, once again proving her point of how men see her. Shirin Neshat has won many awards for her artwork, and has had countless exhibit's around the world and we can only hope this trend continues. 

Pinaree Sanpitake The Egg 1977
Female artist Pinaree Sanpitak is also another female artist who challenges race in her artwork. She is a Thai artist who mainly focuses the patriarchal challenges women face in Asia. Pinaree uses her art in a non aggressive way to try to promote change. She was always aware as a child while growing up in Bangkok the expectation for the woman to be submissive to the male. So she tries to let her art be a form of voice without attacking because she is aware that if anything that would backfire. Her art piece "The Egg", created in 1977. Above we see this photo and immediately see that she is referring to the female body being used as a vessel for child birth. Which yes is true, but it is more of a way of her saying that in Asian and even American culture the female is only viewed as a vessel for children, and that the male will still always be more important. She even paints only the stomach and the egg. She doesn't even paint a face or other body parts, symbolizing that the only focal point is the egg and stomach. Pinaree has also done other works that challenge the social issues of family loss, female prostitution, and identity. 

Jill Scott Machinedreams 1990

Now it's time to take a trip to the down under. Australian female artist Jill Scott, her work first appeared in the Biennale of Sydney of 1990. She and other artists from around the world showed their work which mainly consisted of the irony of gender issues that surrounded post modernism in Europe and North America. Scott had an installation called "Machinedreams" which were photos of women caressing everyday domestic and household items such as this photo to the left. Scott was basically making a point that women are stereotyped as being the typical housewife. When in reality we are so much more. Even in the photo we see that the female has the typical housewife hairstyle. The big poofed up blonde hair, and she has the long red nails and matching jewelry. Possibly a dig to the typical 1950's housewife and how that socially accepted idea still lingers around these days. Jill hopes to change these stereotypes through her artwork, as well as the previous artists I have mentioned. 

Guerilla Girls Advantages of Being a Female Artist 1986

Last but not least we have the Guerilla Girls, who are not one artist but a group of anonymous feminist artists who fight discrimination, and against the typical social construct that comes with being a female. The idea behind their name is because they wear gorilla masks to number one keep them anonymous but also to direct attention mainly to the issue they are bringing up rather than their faces and personalities. Which in away is a similar idea to the male gaze. What makes this group so great is that they try to tackle these issues through humor and not aggression, which can sometimes turn people off. Their art is mainly posters and photographs. For example the photo above is one of the earlier posters they created making almost an ironic way of looking at a female artist. In the sense that they are almost pointing out the negative outlooks female artists are stuck with and making them ironically positive. All of the female artists I have listed above are great in every way, but don't limit yourself to only 5 artists! There are many others who have just as much popularity, or even need to be discovered, so don't limit your brain, explore and open your creativity to so much more!

Works Cited:

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Fourth Edition. Thames and Hudson World of Art

Girls, Guerilla. The Guerilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin Books. 1998.