Feminology

My project started simply as a study of the female anatomy, I love the human form and I find the female figure particularly beautiful and fascinating to depict. I’ve always preferred an honest portrayal of an ordinary woman to a glamorous portrait of a supermodel, so I studied the work of Jenny Saville, a painter whose style I love; I greatly appreciate her brutally honest paintings of the human form. I was enjoying exploring the female anatomy in my paintings but I fast began to feel like it was overdone and not challenging enough to hold my interest.

During my visit to the Frieze Exhibition I discovered the work of New York artist Marilyn Minter. As a self-proclaimed feminist I was immediately drawn to her controversial, politically incorrect portrayal of women. Minter really pushes the boundaries in her portrayal of the female; she explores the woman’s psyche through her physical manifestations. I was particularly interested in her exploration of female sexuality, during this study she expressed the opinion that nobody has politically-correct sexual fantasies, and women are no exception to this rule.

I’ve always felt that women are restricted by society’s expectations, and I wanted to broach the subject by exploring the surprisingly common fantasies that women have, but which so few are willing to discuss. I began my project by taking several self-portraits of my figure as well as representations of some fetishes. It was during this process that I took a photo of my lips which strongly resembled numerous Pop Art images, in particular Andy Warhol’s Kiss Goodbye. I liked the image so much that I used it for my final piece, and could not resist using a slightly “Pop Art” style to paint the lips.

I feel that my project did not fully explore the theme of female sexuality; I definitely made a good start on the subject, and am extremely pleased with the quality of my work. However, I feel that it is such a broad and detailed theme that I was barely able to scratch the surface. I absolutely intend to explore this subject further and would really like to push the boundaries further and explore other people’s views as well as my own.