International Womens Day Exhibition 2011

1. "Washerwoman" Lorna Logan

2. "Ophelia" Heli Luoma

3. "Fish Lady" Danielle Dionne Cavanagh-Keane

4. "Beauty tips" Eva Lis

5. "Lip-sync" Ingrid Berthon-Moine

6. "Repusively feminine" Agata Cardoso

7. "Untitled" Lucinda Chell

8. "Self portrait" Jennifer Maidment

9. "Goddess #1 2010" Rosie Emerson

10. "Untitled" Megan Pickering

11. "Lisa" Eva Muhlbacher

12. "Kate" Fox Irving

13. "Untitled" Emma Harvey

14. "Aphrodite" Catherine Edmunds

1.  “Washerwoman” Lorna Logan

Although neglected for years, my sculpture has always focused on the female form. I work mainly in metals and resins and use these to contrast the strength of material with the fragility of form. In some garbled way this shows the conflicting feelings I have about being a woman. I find it hard to talk about my work because I feel I have yet to pin down its’ nature; anyone willing to support me through an MA please feel free to contact me via VV, Thank you.

2.  “Ophelia” Heli Luoma

Part of the series “Stranger to myself”

Website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34796071

3. “Fish Lady” Danielle Dionne Cavanagh- Keane

Whilst travelling around South Africa I visited a lot of fishing harbour’s and it was interesting to discover that the preparation of the fish involved mainly female labourers. On this particular occasion I stood for hours admiring the skill, the precision and the speed in which the ‘fish lady’ gutted one fish after the other without a break and quite often without even having to look down and watch what her knife was doing. I feel the image captures an unspoken about marketable skill which is not only steeped in history but presents itself as a progressive attitude of women in the workforce all over the world.

4. “Beauty Tips” Eva Lis

Eva Lis work explores formations and falls of an ideology, morality and the elasticity of morality, consumerism and globalization.  She is interested in how human instincts for domination and supremacy manifest themselves in western society and how they operate within the rules of our sanitized culture, constructed morality and political correctness.

5. “Lip-sync” Ingrid Berthan Moine

Lip-sync. This image is part of a set of men’s (hairy) mouths. The image is taken to frame the subjects in such a way as to suggest the vulva of a female. This merging of opposing signifiers collapses preconceptions, expectations are twisted upside down and inside out ; that’s what V day means to me!

Summary practice:

Ingrid Berthon-Moine’s interest lies in investigating sexuality and the body (male and female) as vehicles for a powerful contestation of the debate around sexual representation. Lately, her subject is the manner in which photography wilfully misrepresents. She merges opposite signifiers to upend conventions of representation and to highlight absurdities. She refers to gender studies, psychoanalysis and anthropology and borrow visual elements from popular culture such as advertising, music or fashion. Ingrid has exhibited across London, the UK and Internationally. She lives and works in London.

Web site: www.ingridberthonmoine.com

6. “Repulsively Feminine” Agata Cardoso

Part of the ‘Repulsively Feminine’ series

Agata Cardoso’s sculptural vaginas and underwear pieces are curiously attractive and yet repulsive-this is emphasized through the use of sumptuous fabrics and petal pink flowers. Colours in her sculptural pieces are a strong comment on the sickly colour scheme conditioning of boys and girls from a young age, with consumerism choosing a generic identity for each gender, girls adopting a ‘Barbie-esque’ feminine identity that transcends into adulthood. She blurs the boundaries of femininity in her large scale photographs of male models wearing her constructed knickers, suggesting the ambiguity between the male and female form.

“These constructed knickers and sculptural vagina’s are meant to be silly, they are over the top, but so are the pressures of girls and women to adopt a ‘plastic identity’ where genitals and breasts are mutilated and reconstructed to look like dolls. Our culture in the last 10 years has become so consumed with a false reality that when presented with the ‘reality’ of what a body really does look like we feel either disgusted, inadequate or confused”- Agata Cardoso

Website: www.agatacardoso.co.uk

7. “Untitled” Lucinda Chell

For several years I’ve been drawing human skulls with a sense of detachment- I considered them interesting subjects for study and actively tried to disassociate them from humanity. Following the death of a girlfriend, I set out to examine some of the more horrible facets of medical science with a focus on the treatment of the female body in the field of medical research in an effort to try to better understand death and inure myself to some of the more upsetting aspects of life. I drew the damaged reproductive organs of many long-dead women in the Hunterian museum to this end, trying to capture the finest detail I could. But I found that the closer I looked and the more detail I tried to render accurately and passively, the less resemblance the images had to their subjects, becoming flat and toneless, almost abstract. Because without context, depth, perspective, they didn’t mean anything. -Lucinda Chell

8. “Self portrait” Jennifer Maidment

International women’s day (to me) simultaneously represents the celebration of how far feminism has come since it’s revolution – and before, alongside the still necessary battle for all types for feminist action today. I once heard the best type of feminism was not to seek to make work related to the subject itself, but instead to stand as a successful, robust figure in the field of art (or whatever your chosen sector may be). I try to do just that; aiming toward being a good artist makes me stand for many other things outside of art: after all, the personal is political. I have chosen to submit to you this self-portrait, as it shows both an element of myself and of the fantasy/imagination/narrative that I also develop my work around. For a personal bio please see my website.

Website: www.jennifermaidment.com

www.jennifermaidment.tumblr.com

9. “Goddess #1 2010” Rosie Emerson

Photograph on Aluminium, 80 x 180 cm, in collaboration with the Institute of Light

Rosie Emerson was born in Dorset in 1981. Since graduating in Fine Art from Kingston University In 2004 she has dedicated her practice to exploring beauty, power and voyeurism interwoven within the subject of the female image.

Drawing reference from archetype’s old and new, she manipulates seductive female figures into superficial replicas akin to fashion iconography. As Solis objects often towering on a plinths of gazelle-like legs, the women are presented as objects of desire, trapped in an enigmatic images of irresistibility and impotence.

Rosie has work in a number of private collections and has exhibited widely in the UK, as well as in Europe, the US and Tel Aviv. Last year she completed a number of private commissions for clients including P&O Cruises, Sony, and Triumph Underwear. Rosie currently lives and works in East London.

Website: www.rosieemerson.co.uk

10. “Untitled” Megan Pickering

My work ranges from print, photography and body art to political activism, video, sound and text. It is an exploration into gender politics and I am currently looking at the continual importance of feminism in today’s society. Women are still the poorest in every country, still objectified, victimised, raped and still do not receive justice within in the legal system. For me, International Women’s day means we still have a long way to go before we achieve equality across the globe.

Website: http://iamnotawomanartist.tumblr.com/

11. “Lisa” Eva Mühlbacher

“Portrait of the month”

“The gaze of a menstruating woman was greatly feared. She makes both humans and animals fall ill, mirrors turn cloudy and metal rust.” (Rural folk belief and popular superstition)

With this photo spread an aspect of every woman’s life is outlined, which otherwise remains in the dark. The subject of menstruation is deliberately put in the centre of public attention. These photos of women and their monthly ‘blood’ try to get rid of the commonly felt disgust by replacing it with aesthetic pictures.

Project by Eva Mühlbacher and Katharina Buschenreiter

This photo is part of a series that will be presented in a group show for the International Women’s Day in Vienna:  www.art-form.at

12. “Kate” Fox Irving

Should Feminists wear Lipstick?

‘Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick.’ Gwyneth Paltrow, American Actress b.1972

Lipstick Feminism, a response to the radicalised feminist movements of earlier decades, aims to unite the warring identities of ‘feminine’ and ‘feminist’. But is it possible to embrace the accepted social signifiers of femininity – from wearing make-up to pole-dancing and stripping – while remaining true to the principles of Feminism? And how does the lipstick fit into all this? The artist will use the object of the lipstick to get the participants to think and talk about feminism, gender, sexuality, their bodies and self-image. The work will consist of a series of photographic portraits and bodies of text created by the participants, as each participant will be invited to write around 50 words in response to the working title.

The exhibition will also confront the viewer with a challenge to respond to the issues raised. A single portrait will consist of a mirror featuring a single lipstick kiss print; thus inviting the viewer to question their own sense of gender and sexual identity and to become part of the collection. A chair will be placed in front of the piece to offer the viewer some intimacy within the open space while they challenge their understanding of women.  The viewer will be invited to write and submit 50 words in response to the working title.

Biography: Fox Irving (born Dawn Irving, 1979) is an English artist, who lives and works in Brighton/London. Her work explores issues of identity, self hood and discovery and the interplay between them, and her pieces commonly form a conversation within which information is simultaneously disclosed and withheld. A questioning tone is at the forefront of the art, which is created in – and creates – an uncertain space where facts and boundaries are constantly shifting.

Website: www.foxirving.com

13.  “Untitled” Emma Harvey

This painting is a very personal work and is about celebrating and embracing being female.

I am London-based painter and work primarily in oils. My work is very personal and focuses on themes of sexuality and the place of women in contemporary society.  My work has been shown at various group exhibitions during 2010.

Website: http://www.evh-art.co.uk

14. “Aphrodite” Catherine Edmunds

The sculptor tried to create perfection, but he forgot her mottled thighs and her intelligence, so the beauty he created was a lovely thing, but not one that we women recognise as one of us. I’ve taken her out of the British Museum and put her in a forest, full of growing things and life. She’ll wake up any minute.

I paint with words, I sculpt with colour, and I scrape a living with music. The barriers between the arts are blurred in my practice and thus I am something of a magpie, borrowing from one art to enhance the others. In practical terms this means I can illustrate my own writing, and have done so professionally on a few occasions, though I prefer to illustrate for others, loving as I do the collaborative process.-Catherine Edmunds

Website: http://www.freewebs.com/catherineedmunds/