“That question [why do you paint?] has been put to me before and my answer was, 'To give terror a face.' But it's more than that. I paint because I can't help it.” Paula Rego
Felicity Allen | Lilias Buchanan | Lucy Crispin | Claire de Lune | Twinkle Troughton | Chiara Williams
POW! Painters is part of the POW! Thanet festival 2019 and is an exhibition of works by contemporary female painters working in Thanet. The show will survey the diverse practice of painting by women in Thanet, whilst highlighting the practice of contemporary painting in the region.
While some question whether all-female exhibitions negate their purpose in promoting equality in the art world, a quick stroll through the National Gallery tells us that the history of art is predominantly told through the eyes and by the paintbrushes of men. Although the situation is slowly improving, the percentage of female artists exhibiting or selling work both nationally and internationally has always been consistently low:
- From the 16–19th centuries, women were barred from studying the nude model, which formed the basis for academic training and representation.
- Only five women made the list of the top 100 artists by cumulative auction value between 2011-2016. (artnet News)
- Work by women artists makes up only 3–5% of major permanent collections in the U.S. and Europe, and 34% in Australian state museums. (Judy Chicago for the Guardian, Countess Report)
- Only 30% of artists represented by commercial galleries are women. In Australia, it’s about 40%; in Germany, less than 20%. (Hyperallergic, Countess Report, artnet News)
- The 2009 Venice Biennale edition featured 43% women; in 2013, it dropped to 26%. In 2015, it was 33%, and in 2017 was 35%. No major international exhibition of contemporary art has achieved gender parity. (ARTnews, Artsy)
POW! Painters will celebrate both painting by women and painting itself, giving a female platform to a historically male art-form.
“You have to love oil paint to work with it. I keep discovering things about oil paint that I didn’t know it could do before. However long an oil painting takes to make, you have to bring the whole thing together into one moment. I try to make that moment as intense as falling in love.” Maggie Hambling
(Statistics taken from National Museum of Women in the Arts)
