Portraiture and feminine identity

• Main Author: House, Felice Louise
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Portraiture; Figurative painting; Women's studies; Alice Neel; Barkley Hendricks; Paint handling
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2011-05-2860

To portray women without objectifying them is an intentional, political act. The art historical tradition is to paint women to extol their sexual beauty and to encourage possessiveness. There is a new guard of women painters who provide a counterpoint to this tradition by depicting a more multifaceted version of the female psyche. I align myself as an artist with them by attempting to broaden the depiction of women as subjects in painting. My subjects are beautiful and observable, but not consumable. They are more public than private and more iconic than intimate. My paintings have a strong connection to traditional portraiture in both style and technique. However, my subjects are contemporized through the use of modern fashion, unexpected facial expressions, unique color relationships and photographic cropping. === text