Femalepersuasion.net

I was introduced to the paintings of Kelly Reemsten this morning by a friend and I’m quite taken by them….they remind me of the stylish painterly companion to Alex Prager’s Hitchcockian ladies in peril.

Currently rediscovering the art of Cathy Lomax.

“Everyday life is boring. This mind numbing drudgery needs to be punctured by episodes of escapism – events and situations encountered not in actuality but as an observer and then lived out within our heads. The most powerful and easily accessible escapist experience for most people is provided by film – 90 min slices of someone else’s life.

I decided to keep a diary of all the films that I watched, selecting one image from each to make into a small, rapidly executed painting, thereby providing a record of what it was that drew me in and kept me rapt. This could be viewed as one of those hugely un-scientific arbitrary exercises that artists indulge in. But as with any other recording of everyday events the choices that I make in watching one film rather than another says something about me and probably defines me at this moment in time as much as anything could.”

Her website is here, with her blog here.

One of the few books that has made me cry. What actors wouldn’t want to play these roles.

“Smith’s National Book Award-winning memoir Just Kids, which documents her previous relationship with now deceased black-and-white photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in 1970s New York, is soon to become a major motion picture.”

Ink on Paper, 220cm x 120cm

From her site:

One of series of new work from UK feminist artist Helen Gorrill, based on the deconstruction and revival of the Virgin Mary. Her art is based on ‘Alone of all her sex’ (Marina Walker), the attempt to rethink religion in the feminine and reveal ideas that have previously been repressed in traditional Christian imagery. Theorist Toril Moi stresses ‘there is…an urgent need for a ‘post-virginal’ discourse on maternity, one which ultimately would provide both women and men with a new ethics’. The Guardian:- “The drawings for her degree show, which reverse the female submissiveness advocated by a religious pamphlet posted through her door, put women in a dominant position while the men are bound and bent in sexual submission. The male figures have been censored but to protect whom? The spam I receive contains more indecency than Ms Gorrill’s work. And it is much less interesting because she makes a valid point.”

My work looks at post-feminist concepts of power and control, investigating enforcement, reinforcement and reactions to patriarchal society.  I am particularly interested in how patriarchy has been moulded by scripts for male power, using cultural criticism of male scripts (the bible and popular culture) to challenge existing social norms.

Necklace  2010  glass beads on clay, mirror, base  44” diameter  x 10” 

This installation is inspired by the obsession in our culture over beauty and plastic surgery. Does size really matter?

Props to fyeahwomenartists for introducing me to this Colombian/NY artist today.

Lady Gaga’s sister, Natali Germanotta, is creating costumes for a new off-Broadway show- Simon Says- which is set to debut this autumn.