Extra credit Contemporary artists

Salmah Aldagahdy


Art and Women





In today’s society women artists still have a lot to represent to the world. Women are still living in a patriarchal world where we must respond to our roles just like we have seen in the past. As said by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who is a novelist and also a feminist:


“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important…”


Adichie speaks about the aspect of women and all about their experiences, yesterday and today but hopefully not tomorrow. When girls are at a young age, girls are taught that they should be in a specific way, Their bodies should be thin so their figure looks nice and if it wasn’t like that they would be shamed. Girl are also taught to be submissive and obedient because if they don’t then they will be rebellious. She is being shamed if she wants to express herself in her own way and is said to be not normal. To picture the theme of oppression of women, I have chosen five different contemporary women who make themselves heard through their work of art. They push through these wrong patriarch views that are grown upon society.


Anna Josson, born in Sweden, lives and works in Spain illustrates her work on the female roles in society. The most interesting piece of work she created is the “Perdon” art piece she created in 2010 which means “I'm sorry” in spanish. Person is a five minute video of a woman asking for forgiveness continuously. We can see in the video the performer puts on a tired and gloomy face of makeup to show that she's very fatigued of continously saying sorry all the time . Anna Jonsson’s message to her viewers is something most women can relate to. Women are so restricted and always viewed by society. If one mistake is done then that's it for her she will be a victim of prejudice.


Anna Jonsson, Perdón, 2010





Polly Nor is another contemporary artist who focuses on the digital picture to making her works. Polly Nor is known for her drawings of women and their “demons” In North West London, Polly Nor created many of these images that illustrate women who take off their skins at the end of the day and roaming around as their inner demons. In the picture below that Polly created Long Days and Short Nights to illustrate a woman’s agency when she is eventually freed. The two “demons”,or women being shown in the image are shown wearing bikinis, beer and cigarettes, and a phone on the other hand.The way they are posing in a way society with their legs hanging, resting her leg on the other is something we don’t see unless its done by men. Society created this, only is it a “man”thing to do but women can’t. When we look at the woman laying down on the beach towel not wearing her bikini top and exposing herself with a smile looking unapologetic about herself. At the end of the day it is her body and that is what Polly Nor shows her audience the bright side of living relaxed in a woman’s own skin rather than what this society has created for her.


Polly Nor, Long Days & Short Nights, 2017





Tatyana Fazlaizadeh is a painter and an illustrator in Brooklyn that we discussed in class. She is known for the project she created known as “Stop Telling Women to Smile” where she talks about the issues of street harassment through pictures she drew of actual women that tell their story to Fazlalizadeh about their personal experience of street harassment. She puts up these pictures in neighborhoods to talk about against this issue that unfortunately women face by walking down the streets. Tatyana makes every poster very personal and relates it to all the women experiencing the same issue. Her work strengthens these women and gives a chance for their voices to be heard rather than not saying anything about it.





Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Stop Telling Women to Smile





Frances Goodman is another contemporary artist that creates work to illustrate women’s experience of oppression by society. She is a South American artist that works a lot with materials used in the beauty industry. She has made many sculptures by using fake nails that nail salons use to put together to make it look professional as if it came out of a book.One of her works, known as Medusa that she created in 2013-14 was created by using acrylic nails of different colors that represent the ancient Greek mythology of Medusa who is known to have locks of hair which is made up of snakes. Frances Goodman’suses this story to represent the different ways in which women are usually met with double standards. The story of Medusa was there was once a beautiful woman who was punished by Athena and given snakes for hair because she was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple and became a hideous monster. Even though she was raped by her male counterparts, she is still the one that's being punished for it. MAny women in today's society can relate to this. Maybe not in the same way but in implicit ways. Now in Tatuana’s work we see that men feel like women owe something to them in return for their pleasure which wasn’t even asked about. They are called names if they don’t say thank you and if they willingly give themselves into the man they’re being called easy. Society tend to blame women and call women victims. Instead of actually pointing out the perpetrator, society blames women because it's easier since she is seen as weak anyways.


Frances Goodman, Medusa, 2013-14







Frida Kahlo is a Mexican artist that used to show all the physical challenges she faced through her life. Most of the paintings she painted where portraits of herself. She always included nature as a part of her heritage. Her portraits of herself are all traditional wearing Mexican traditional clothing. During her teenage years, she got into an accident that fractured her Spinal cord and her pelvis which resulted in paralizacion. So during her recovery days she kept herself busy with painting. Her work includes major symbolism, known as “The Two Fridas” which is her famous work of art.In this work of art we see that she painted one Frida in a modern dress and the other one with traditional dress both holding hands.





The Two Fridas (1939)