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| Lady Liberty Is Bush's Whore, 2006 Photo: Cassidy Curtis |
A woman by the name of Sandra Fabara who was born in Ecuador in 1964 was one of the women artists that caught my eye in the Brooklyn museum with her art work (shown above). She was raised in New York City and began making graffiti at the age of 15 and became a well known woman graffiti artist. The graffiti subculture like many forms of art was dominated by men and quickly she became known as "Lady Pink" a prominent female graffiti artist. She even painted fascinating murals on walls and trains. In an interview, she expressed that she was "corrupted by a handsome young man" who was arrested for graffiti and she wind up tagging up his name in middle school. And once she went to high school for art and design in the city she would try to be like one of the boys and paint onto trains just as they had done. Many of her paintings are highly prized by collectors and many of her works are in museums such as the Whitney Museum, the MET, Brooklyn Museum and even the Groningen Museum of Holland. Pink is a pioneering graffiti artists who created this mural "Lady Liberty is Bush's Whore" in reaction to the destruction of civil liberties under the presidency of George W. Bush. She uses the Statue of Liberty as a sex object as she is chained to a monkey and holding a tray of fast food. Even her underwear signifies the stars from the flag of the United States indicating the direction this country is going to in the hands of GWB. Through her artwork it is known that she likes to use art to express political and societal. She
considered herself a young feminist even though she didn't know it was
affecting her directly and she uses the idea that men thought
women couldn't do what they could do to her advantage. She even said she
had to prove herself and was trying to be a role model for her sisters. Today,
she runs a mural company with her husband in New York City and has
influenced artist to donate art to neglected communities. Lady Pink even
holds workshops for kids and speaks to college students throughout the
Northeast.
A woman by the name of Nina Allender also had work displayed
in the museum that is considered political work. She studied painting at a
couple of different schools including a school in London. She was a woman who
was very involved in the suffrage movement and her work most certainly
reflected that. A woman by the name of Alice Paul requested for Allender to
create a cartoon drawing for the Suffragist and when she agreed this started
her dedication with the National Woman’s Party. Though she was a painter, her political
cartoons were not of paint but of a different format. Charcoal, graphite and
ink were used for these cartoons instead, which in my opinion enhanced the
seriousness of these cartoons. These cartoons were unique and “represented a
challenge to the “traditional” image of the suffragist (as conceived of by male
cartoonists at the time) as unattractive, scolding, and rowdy” (SBM). Today, she is considered one of the most
influential political artists of her era because she captured the struggle of
women’s rights at that time and being a suffragist herself, participated in the
gaining of women’s rights.
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| If I could only keep my left hand from knowing what my right hand is doing, 1917 Nina Allender |
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| At Last- The Suffragist Cover June, 1919 |
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| Artist: Laurie Jo Reynolds |
Laurie Jo Reynolds is not only an artist but also a policy
advocator who addresses the problems of the U.S prison system. She challenges
things such as demonization, warehousing and social exclusion of people on the
criminal justice system. She is an advocate for better practices to stop sexual
abuse in prisons and researches information to reduce recidivism. In the
Brooklyn museum, displayed in a glass case were photos of some work from
Reynolds from the past decade of her focusing on the supermax prison in Illinois
called Tamms Correctional Center. It was said to be designed for “sensory
deprivation and caused lasting mental damage to the men held in isolation there”.
She is another one who uses her art work for social change and correction of
the current issues we have today.
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| Artist: Laurie Jo Reynolds |
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| The Broken Column, Frida Kahlo 1944 |
Frida Kahlo is one of the very memorable women artists because her
work is so reflective of her life and has lots of self- expression. She painted
and created art from her feelings and emotions and left it all on the canvas.
She had been in
a serious train accident that severely injured her causing
her to be hospitalized and in a body cast for a good chunk of her life. She
often drew and painted on her cast because that is the only canvas she had. She
also couldn’t give birth which is something else she used an influence in her
paintings and through symbolism, realism and surrealism created these art
pieces that are still recognizable today. Like most women a man, Diego Rivera
who was a muralist himself, influenced her. The heartache she got from his
unfaithfulness as well was something that helped her paintings express emotion
and her sexuality.
Mary Cassatt was one of the leading women in the Impressionists movement
around the 1800s. She was an American painter and in her early life she was
brought up with a family of high social standings. She was prepped to be a
“proper wife and mother” and even took classes for things such as music,
sketching and painting. In spite of her dad’s strong objection to her
“bohemian” lifestyle she decided to leave for Paris in 1866. Despite all of the obstacles she had to
overcome she kept painting and a lot of her paintings were shown in
exhibitions. She even started changing up some of her artistic expressions through
different colors and “unflattering accuracy of its subjects”. Sadly, her
eyesight began to deteriorate and essentially put an end to her painting
career.
The five women are memorable to me because they had some sort of
influence and impact in the world that had to do with change and progression.
Whether its for themselves or for others, it was still a transformation through
a form of artistic expression.
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| Frida Kahlo in her body cast |
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| Mary Cassatt, Woman in Black at the Opera 1880 |
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