This is still not an invitation

I am and always have been very intrigued in the relationship between art and political/social issues. I find myself very motivated to create something that will delve deeper into a meaning important to me, and potentially important to those who view it. Feminism is something that I hold close to my heart, so when the prompt came up to explore a social or political issue I wanted to explore sexism and a specific facet in feminism. It's shocking to me that women's bodies are treated differently than men's bodies and the first idea that I had was to create a piece that illustrated that difference. We all know that women are told to cover themselves from the government, our parents, our peers, our teachers, and the media. There are even certain cultures where women aren't even allowed to expose their ankles, neck, shoulders, or parts of their faces. Although western culture is much more lenient and there are limited clear cut rules on what we are *allowed* to expose, there are still severe social connotations and consequences when a women exposes her nude body. Our parents tell us men will sexualize us, rape us, make fun of us. We are told from teachers to not wear low cut tops or shorts that expose too much thigh in order to avoid distracting the boys in our class. Our peers, both women and men, talk about how when a woman wears minimal clothing she is "asking for it" or dressed "slutty" or wanting attention. A woman with less clothing is a sex object. A woman with less clothing is a symbol of desire and lust. We see it on adds, in TV shows, and all over the media. This brings me to the issue of what it means for a woman to be naked. A man who is naked or near naked is just naked. A woman who is naked or near naked is "asking for it". I decided to make a drawing of a woman who has taken her shirt off in a very liberating pose and wrote the text "I AM STILL NOT ASKING FOR IT!!" This to me is a very powerful message about what it means to be nude and how difficult it is for us as women to be in our natural state in society when we are constantly being judged, sexualized, and when men make advances at us for simply exposing our bodies. I was really inspired by Suzanne Wright's pieces, and when I thought about the idea I wanted to create, I thought about her works. She does drawings of women from porn magazines and combines it with elements of industrial landmarks or objects. I thought that was an interesting juxtaposition between the sexualization of a womens' bodies and how she covers up the "taboo" parts of the women which in a way makes the image easier to look at and less sexy. I found a female artist named Joyce Weiland who does very whimsical and abstracted portraits of women on dark backgrounds, which lead to me to want to experiment again with doing a white color pencil drawing on a black background.

http://suzannewrightstudio.com/COMPLICATED-BUSHhttp://www.dailyartfixx.com/2010/07/01/canada-day-canadian-art/paint-phantom-joyce-wieland-1983-84/
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