I’ve always had an interest in the female figure and recently this has stemmed into feminist art and an obsession with Avante-guard feminism and female artists of the 1970s. For my FMP I’m interested in exploring different ways in which I can display my body through different forms of figurative mark-making. Along the way of exploring this topic, there may be some activism or political points through my work but I’m not making this the point of the project.
I’m particularly interested in provocative art and displaying my body in a sexual manner. I’ve read about how a lot of women’s art involving celebrating/exploring their bodies was seen as pornography and not art and I’m very interested in the distinction between what is pornography and what is art. The over-sexualization of the female body is apparent in so many ways throughout society but I’m majorly going to explore this in the world of art. Going back to the Ancient Egyptians men would create figurative sculptures and paintings of women and these were classed as pornography, women weren’t even allowed to see them until they became an ancient artifact then classed as art. Another example is Hannah Wilke’s self nude portraits displayed in the Women’s Art House in the 1970s and men classed this as pornography and wanted nothing to do with it until the uprising of feminist art. Personally, I have experienced some judgemental comments and unwanted attention through my performative work from men who seem to see me using my own body in art as me seeking their sexual desire which I believe is very bizarre. I’m curious to find out more opinions from how people view my personal art and other art alike to my own. I know men who use their bodies through performative work and people immediately jump to anatomy and geometric-related subjects whereas if I do it suddenly I have a feminist point to portray and am seeking sex.
The only rule I’m setting myself is to only research female artists. Alike to Judy Chicago who created the Women’s Art Revolution I want to teach myself as much as I can about the history of feminism in art through mainly working with female artists and only researching current and historical female artists. This is just something I’m interested in and I think it will give me a deeper understanding of what it means to be a female artist. A lot of my work is intuitive and I don’t have a specific reason or vision for the piece before I start creating but as I’ve begun to teach myself about feminism in art I think my work has improved along with the analysis of why I’m doing it.
To start off with my Final Major Project I thought I’d take inspiration from my recent work as I feel these past few months I’m more in touch with who I want to be as an artist and what I want to create. All of the work I create is figurative mark-making usually based on my own body. This includes figurative sculptures, performance art (film&photography) using my own body, and intuitive mark-making such as drawing or mark-making with my body.
This is a selection of my favorite recent work that I feel best represents me and the kind of art I’d like to carry on making for this project.
Figurative Sculptures:
Mark-Making:
