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| Marie-Denise Villers, Young Woman Drawing, 1801. Oil on canvas. (Source.) |
It’s no secret that art galleries tend to under-expose female artists. When you walk into your average Canadian auction, gallery, or museum and you are more likely to encounter a man’s work than a woman’s (and more likely to encounter a white person’s work than that of a person of colour). However, there is hope. More and more museums and galleries are investing in women artists, and more and more museums and galleries are hosting special exhibitions highlighting the work of women in their collection. Still, there is a long way to go for representation of women in cultural heritage spaces.
I like to think that as Museum Studies students we are all aiming to be part of the solution. I therefore present to you a not-at-all comprehensive, scratching-the-surface list of contemporary women artists from all six permanently inhabited continents. I hope it will provide you with a starting point from which to explore the full diversity of women’s experiences, as told by art, in your future institutions.
North America
- Rosalba Hernández (Dominican Republic): A contemporary artist, Hernández aims to reflect the passion, vibrancy, and realities of her home of Santo Domingo.
- Aline Herrera (Mexico): This young artist uses her work to bring attention to Indigenous communities in Mexico and the atrocities they suffer under colonialism.
- Jordan Casteel (United States): Casteel uses art to tell honest, sensitive stories about Black communities, families, and friends, with a particular focus on the lives of Black men in Harlem.
- Teresa Young (Canada): A Metis artist from Halifax, Young creates surreal paintings with strong Indigenous influences, telling stories which often are not heard in contemporary Canadian galleries.
- Tania Bruguera (Cuba): Bruguera is well-known for her political activism through installation and performance art, which she uses to explore themes of immigration and political propaganda. She is also famous for her claim that she would one day run for the Cuban presidency, and for her multiple arrests for her anti-authoritarianism activism in Cuba.
South America
- Valentina Campos (Bolivia): Both an artist and a farmer, Campos infuses her work with themes of biodiversity, agriculture, and land stewardship. She is the co-founder of "Kunaymana", a co-operative of Aymara women from two communities of Lake Titicaca, which aims to promote culture and agriculture.
- Josefina Guilisasti (Chile): Guilsasti is an emerging contemporary artist who explores themes like colonisation, capitalism, exploitation, commercialism, and development through still life pictoral works and photographs.
- Agustina Casas Sere-Leguizamon (Uruguay): A digital artist who has a long list of artistic accolades, Casas Sere-Leguizamon explores themes of revolution, uprising, colonialism, and peace through the digital reconstruction and manipulation of historical art artefacts.
- Regina Silveria (Brazil): Silveira manipulates conceptions of reality physical space through the use of light, shadows, and distortions. She works in videography, painting, and printmaking.
- Karla Solano (Costa Rica):Using herself as her primary subject, Solano explores the human form through photography and x-ray imaging. Solano uses these forms to frame the body as a neutral reflection of the time, rather than as a sexualized form.
Europe
- Alisa Jakobi (Estonia): Jakobi combines minimalism with fauvism to explore human reconciliation with nature, the nature of the unconscious mind, and the role of changing gender norms in contemporary society.
- Kraljica Vila ("KTV") (Serbia): Protected by her pseudonyms, this street artist uses spray paint to disrupt the male-dominated street art community in Belgrade, and uses her works to explore the lives of women of colour, migrant and refugee women, and LGBTQ+ women.
- Eylem Aladogan (Netherlands): Aladogan uses sculpture and drawing to explore power, how it is harnessed, how it is generated, and how willpower in particular is engaged so people overcome existential fears.
- Kjuregej (Iceland): Russian-born but based in Iceland, Kjuregej is a multi-disciplinary artist who draws upon her Sakha Republic roots and her background as an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital in her work.
- Namsa Leuba (Switzerland): Leuba is a photographer who draws on her half-Swiss, half-Guinean parentage to explore perceptions of Africanness through Western perspectives.
Africa
- Julie Mehretu (Ethiopia): Mehretu is best known for her large-scale abstract paintings, which draw on architecture as an influence. She is currently one of the world’s most successful female artists, with her works selling for millions of dollars each.
- Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi (South Africa): Inspired by important figures in her life, Nkosi has created a “personal pantheon” of portraits in tribute to her family, friends, and loved ones.
- Peju Alatise (Nigeria): Alatise took up art as a form of rebellion against her strict father, who would not allow her to pursue art. Drawing on Yoruba tradition and her own creative narratives, Alatise explores issues facing girls in her home country of Nigeria.
- Joana Choumali (Côte d’Ivoire): Using photography, Choumali explores the notion of bodily perfection, and challenges the idea of imposing aesthetic restrictions on women’s bodies.
- Takwa Barnosa (Libya): After founding the Waraq Art Foundation in Libya at only seventeen years old, Barnosa leverages the cultural and social power of the art-making process to create positive change in her community via art courses and programs.
Asia
- Marifat Davlatova (Tajikistan): Davlatova uses art to bring attention to the experiences of women in Tajikistan, which she uses as a segue to tackling issues concerning women’s rights, harassment, and social situation.
- Arpana Caur (India): Drawing on her Sikh and Punjabi roots, Caur’s themes involve women, time, and spirituality. The majority of her work is independent, however, she did a series of collaborative pieces with other artists in the 1990s.
- Xiao Lu (China): An installation and video artist, Xiao Lu first became famous for shooting one of her own pieces with a gun at the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition of 1989. Her work explores her experiences and rebellion.
- Marisa Darasavath (Laos): Using colourful surrealist paintings, Darasavath explores the meeting of history and the present, and the experiences of women in Laos. Her work sparked a major conversation at the Singapore Biennale over what it means for art to be “contemporary.”
- Hanaa Malallah (Iraq): Now living in London, UK, Malallah is a renowned Iraqi artist most famous for incorporating found objects in her work, which largely explores the chaos of war, destruction, isolation, and identity.
- Leua Latai (Samoa): Simultaneously a practicing artist and a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Education (National University of Samoa), Latai explores themes of healing and connection in both her art and her scholarship.
- Lakiloko Keakea (Tuvalu): Keakea creates stunning works of woven art which are informed by a build upon a cultural belief that the best art is to be worn, used, and lived with.
- Gloria Petyarre (Australia): An Aboriginal Australian woman, is known for bright and dynamic paintings inspired by Dreamtime stories and tropes traditional to Aboriginal Australian storytelling.
- Theresa Reihana (New Zealand): Reihana is a Māori artist who has exhibited her work internationally. Her paintings explore her surroundings, her whānau (extended family), and culture.
- Sarah Takegawa (Guam): Takegawa borrows technical aspects of Japanese art with street art styles traditionally associated with skateboard graphics. She is also co-founder of The Gallery, a Guam-based all-women’s art group.
I wish you the best of luck advocating for female creators, future museum professionals! May this list be just the springboard for many great, woman-centric, initiatives to come.
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