Nasty Women

The artist I chose to focus on for inspiration in this project is Hannah Hoch. Hannah Hoch is a German artist who was a well known member of the Berlin Dada movement. She is primarily known for her work with photo-montage techniques, and many of her works added a feminist note to the Dada movement’s philosophy of disgust with the perceived wrongs of society.

I was particularly drawn to Hoch’s work not only because of the technical collage aspects, but also because of the messages the work sends about women and the struggles they face in a male dominated society. This has been a theme in many of my own works in the past, and especially in light of the recent events in the election and the controversy that has brought, I feel as though her work, and the work of feminist artists alike has a renewed importance.

One thing I found particularly interesting within my research on Hoch was that she was in fact the only female member of the Dada movement. This caused quite a bit of controversy between her and many of the male members, two of which, George Grosz and John Heartfield, even went as far as to try to prevent her from displaying her work alongside theirs in the First International Dada Fair in Berlin. It was only when her lover, Raoul Hausmann, threatened to pull his own work that they relented. This kind of blatant sexism was common during her time period, but what is sad is that even after all these years it is so clearly apparent to this day, both in the art world and beyond.

I began this project with the intention of incorporating plants into the human form as somewhat of a paradox between the alternate forms of life of plants and animals. I have always had a fascination and love for plants, and the fact that they live and grow so simply yet so beautifully. There is both a certain fragility and strength within plant forms that I see as very different to that of humans or other animals, and I wanted to play off the idea of this difference. However, after the election Tuesday night and the unfavorable outcome, I decided to take the project in a bit of a different direction.

During Hoch’s time, women lived daily in a world that undervalued and disrespected them. That was and is a reality that women have faced throughout history, and despite all of our progression throughout the years, I feel as though the election of Donald Trump has taken us back 100 years (not to mention for the LGBTQ community, POC, Immigrants, etc. as well). This election result is so infuriating and terrifying for so many groups of people, and I can’t begin to imagine the pain that so many innocent people feel and will continue to feel in the coming years.

In my project, I focus on a small margin of the citizens negatively affected by Trump’s election: women. I decided to continue with the theme of plants and my original idea, but a new meaning was added to the work, that of an emphasis on the strength rather than weakness. Women have endured so much hardship and will continue to endure it especially now, but throughout it all we are strong. Women will fight back against sexism and misogyny with renewed enthusiasm and strength, never letting the Donald Trumps of the world take that strength away. In order to convey this idea I did a series of two collages. The first of which is a portrait of a woman seemingly “growing” a cactus out of her face and shoulder, and the second a group of cactus’s with an arm reaching out. These works in conjunction are meant to symbolize the toughness and power of women as represented through the cacti and it’s sharp spikes. I intended for the drawing and portrait aspect of the works to be rendered in a beautiful, smooth way in order to contradict the sharp spikes of the collaged cactus. This represents the two sides of a woman in society: the soft, “pretty” exterior expectation of society, and the sharp, strong interior within our beings. As for the second drawing, the arm reaches out of the sharp spikes as a representation of overcoming the pain and hardship of what we are facing today.