For Women's Month - Eclectix Gets Pretty In Pink

To help celebrate March - Women's History Month 2012 and the feminine eye, Eclectix has just released their new issue, "Pretty In Pink". All female artists and related posts. The pretty, the pink and the not-so-pretty or pink. Strong women’s art, new feminist visions and rockin’ chick works of surreal & contemporary artists. This week we spotlight the fantastic paints of Edith Lebeau. (above) New related features all month long (and then some) on the Eclectix homepage and a great online art exhibition. 

For the Eclectix homepage, click here.

For the online exhibition, click here.

The Surrealist Remedios Varo

Remedios Varo is an incredible painter I have long admired and often wondered why she hasn't received more attention in art history and elsewhere. Could it be sexism?...  Nah...

 In addition to Leonora Carrington and Frida Kahlo she is one of the most engaging and astounding women surrealists. Born in Spain in 1908, she fled to Paris during the Spanish Civil War. During the Nazi occupation of France she then fled to Mexico City - where she remained for the rest of her life. She was close friends with Carrington, studied with Salvador Dali, and in Mexico she became acquainted with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. She died at 55 from a stress-related heart attack.

Currently at Frey Norris Gallery in San Francisco is a rare chance to see a few of her original works - paintings, sketches and drawings. They have a mystical, dream-like quality with scientific and spiritual allegories. Up close, her brushstrokes are tiny, many even seemed like scratch marks through the paint to the board below. Pictured here are a few pics from the exhibit - mostly cropped to share some detail. The show is up through Feb. 25th, 2012.

" The first exhibition of Remedios Varo to ever take place in the western United States, Indelible Fables illuminates the ever-imaginative and prescient world of this surrealist artist." - Frey Norris

(Frey also recently had a great exhibit of Carrington's works)...

To see a gallery of Varo's other incredible masterpieces click here.

Francesca Woodman at SF Moma

Francesca Woodman committed suicide at the age of 22 in 1981. Her works are obviously that of a still-young photographer and it is sad that we will never see what caliber of imagery she could have produced, had she lived a "normal" life. And sadly, I wonder if she would have had a show of this magnitude at a major museum, if she hadn't committed suicide.

This huge exhibition contains all black and white prints, rather on the small side, mostly centered on the female human form, nudes - many set-up shots of her own body. Long exposures, vintage dresses, montages, blurred movements and stark, lonely abandoned rooms. Some stuck me as obvious student shots, amatuer in their subject matter and composition, not really museum quality. However, others were extraordinarily powerful, speaking of a woman's despair - about self doubts, body image, sexuality and isolation. These pieces are strong feminist rejections and obsessions of the male induced beauty image. Many are accompanied by hand written captions and commentary from Francesca which lead us to ponder the damage done by stereotyping, media and advertising.

  

The show at SF Moma is up through February 20, 2012 and we strongly recommend this powerful and haunting exhibition.  

 

Art For International Women's Day

Jane Graverol - L’Esprit Saint (The Holy Spirit), 1965. Jane Graverol was a Belgian surrealist artist. She co-founded the magazines Temps mêlés and Les Lèvres Nues.

For Women's Day this year, I just started researching the web - for art related to women and women's history. Since we only get 2 days a year (Mother's Day being the second), we have to get as much out of it as we can! What are the elements that all women the world over,  have in common? The obvious biological ones - breasts, reproductive organs, menstruation and (of course) a bigger brain. Here follows an eclectic mix of interesting art related to women, grab a cup of java and take a deserved break.

Street mural by Insa in downtown Los Angeles.

Charlotte Newson created this great collage of Emmeline Pankhurst (leader of the British suffragette movement). It is made of a ton of not-so-famous women. You simply must check it out here.

Some vagina based art - castings of the real thing by British sculptor Jamie McCartney

And a felted brooch "Lips" by Winona 

Painted tiki body cast by Ruzic, for the wonderful Keep A Breast Foundation's art auction. For a gallery of other artist's breast torsos click here.

A colorful burst of a painting -"Women's Day Celebration" by Marietjie Henning

  

An awesome advertising campaign, body painted posters for the Breast cancer Foundation. Check out the others here.  Art Director: Andrea Kuo 

Some "Alien" inspired uterus art by AmyGDala-Mars -

One aspect of women's daily lives is the much under-rated tampon. Where would we be without it? An object that more than half the population stares at on a monthly basis - yet it is still considered "gross". What's up with that? So to get it out of the closet a little, here are some fun artworks created with tampons.

 Tampon shoes by Ladypants, Brooklyn Art Project

Vadis Turner - "Tampon Wedding Cake", 2007

The "Tampon Chandelier" of Joana Vasconcelos

And last but not least - a great surrealist piece by Dora Maar, (Sans Titre, 1934), photomontage – a woman famous as Picasso’s muse, but not as an artist in her own right. From an exhibit last year of surrealist women artists that took place in the UK. For a very good read on the show click here.