Arly Navarro
Five Female Artists
Theme: Women Empowerment
Art can contain powerful messages. For years, women were not allowed to even learn how to paint, but slowly, women fought for that privilege. However, even today, women are expected to meet certain requirements in order to be viewed as acceptable. While some conform to avoid confrontation, many challenge the patriarchy. Through art, women demonstrate powerful messages and empower all women.
Suzanne Valadon was born on September 23, 1865. She was a French painter and artists’ model. Her full name is Marie-Clémentine Valadon. She, along with Paula Modersohn-Becker, were the first two women artists to work with the nude female form. Women are typically just seen as very emotional and just useful for biology purposes such as sex and bearing children. Valadon demonstrates women empowerment through her paintings. In her paintings, she is connecting with the nature of life. She challenges those views given to women by taking back the power of the female body. In her paintings, she often paints women in domestic settings and is not afraid to demonstrate the female body in positions that reveal natural curves. The image below is her painting called The Blue Room which is one of her most famous paintings. In this oil painting, she demonstrates vibrant colors, a domestic setting, in bed, and a large woman, comfortable in her pajamas. She is challenging how women seen as solely for the purpose of a man, but the woman is doing as she pleases.
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| Suzanne Valadon, The Blue Room, 1923 |
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| Brooks, Self-Portrait, 1923 |
Romaine Brooks was born on May 1, 1871. She was an American painter who spent a majority of her life in Paris. She had an unstable childhood due to her abusive mother while she was also living with her brother who was mentally ill. Brooks was the first woman painter who displayed a new visual imagery for the twentieth-century lesbian. In her art, she used neutral colors such as black, white, and gray. During her path to creating a new visual imagery, she created a series of powerful images of amazons and warrior women. Then in 1924, she creates a series that constructs lesbianism. She was not afraid to show that a woman proud of her sexuality is a powerful woman. In her painting, Self Portrait 1923, she creates a powerful female image by going against the norms of how females are expected to look— girly.
Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907. She was a Mexican painter born in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico. She is famous for her brilliant use of color in her paintings, which each serve powerful messages. In her paintings, she explored the reality of her own body and her consciousness of its vulnerability. She would paint with bright, vibrant colors which are influenced by her Mexican culture. Kahlo is among the first women to use fashion to bring forth a feminist message of independence. Kahlo also makes sure to incorporate a unibrow and mustache to demonstrate how there is confidence in the unconventional. She is challenging to social norms that society has constructed in order to allow women to be empowered. In her painting The Broken Column 1944, she is expressing her pain and suffering, and even though she is crying, she still appears strong.
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| Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column, 1944 |
Monica Sjoo pp. 373 was born on December 31, 1938. She was a Swedish painter and was actually a self-taught artist. She spent many years studying ancient women’s lunar mysteries and goddess-worshipping religions. She was active and influential in the Goddess movement. This movement honors and glorifies women. Sjoo demonstrates the idea of “Womanpower” in her work such as God Giving Birth 1969. This painting was inspired by the natural home birth of her son born in 1961. She is challenging the patriarchy since it’s the norm to denounce how powerful mothers are. She is taking back the power of motherhood and demonstrating its life-creating powers.
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| Sjoo, God Giving Birth, 1969 |
Jenny Saville was born on May 7, 1970. She is a contemporary British painter. Saville is famous for her paintings of large, nude women. Her paintings focus on the imperfections of our bodies. She is taking back the power of flaws and turning it into masterpieces, demonstrating its true beauty. A famous work of hers is Propper 1992, where she makes sure to show the flaws in skin. Flaws are natural which is what makes them so beautiful. Saville demonstrates how these imperfections are what make us all human. Women are often shamed when they do not meet society’s expectations, but painting the flaws in flesh, she is challenging society’s expectations.
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| Saville, Propper, 1922 |
Works Cited
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Thames Hudson Ltd, 2012.
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