Masters of Fine Arts exhibition: Simulations of female identity as articulated in the media

 

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Artist's statement

In contemporary culture there is a bombardment of images of the ‘perfect’ woman, who is usually portrayed as weighing at least twenty percent less than her height requires, she rarely looks older than 25 and has no visible flaws on her skin.  Such media portrayal is a stereotypical blueprint no longer enforced solely by males, but by women themselves.  The exhibition Eye of the Beholder deals with society’s idealisation of and preoccupation with the female body as seen through the ‘female gaze’.   

The obsession with the female body, and in particular the breasts, is evident throughout the exhibition.  However, many of the body types depicted, deviate slightly from the mass media ideal by incorporating the notion of ‘monster’ and the associations it has with the ‘freak’ and the ‘grotesque’.  In each work the female body is represented as faceless or fragmented parts of a whole, displaying the woman as an object whose individual identity is not important.  She is to be judged on her appearance, as society and mass media advocates.

The colour pink in various shades has been used in each work, as it carries with it connotations of femininity and womanhood.  It is the popularised colour of ‘female’.

This exhibition entailed the research for the MA (FA) degree at the University of Pretoria. Dr Elfriede Dreyer supervised the artist in her Masters studies.

Fried Contemporary Art Gallery & Studio

Left: Comforter (2006). Latex casts on soft board, 3070 x 1240cm

(Merit winner at the 2006 Ekurhuleni Art Awards)

Allsorts series (2006). Series of 9, Acrylic on canvas, Liquorice, fondant icing, 800 x 800 cm each

Boxed In (2006). Perspex boxes on tables, mixed media, 1800 x 1350 x 300 cm

Mirrored Ideals (2006). Wooden hand mirrors, white ink on chipboard, 3000 x 1860 cm

Mirrored Ideals (2006). Wooden hand mirrors, white ink on chipboard, 3000 x 1860 cm

From A-Z (2006). White ink drawings on acetate, glass, paper, 1850 x 1610 cm

Pretty in Pink no 3-7 (2006). Series of 7, Pink ink on red tinted Perspex, 1900 x 600 cm