The more I worked on the POST series, the more I realized the gender gap in art history. I took care in the dialogs I wrote for my paintings to feature as many women as possible, artists and their friends, art dealers or collectors.
I also realized that I wanted to contribute to sharing the knowledge about these women. I became a wikipedia editor focusing on women artists and collaborated with platforms supporting the same mission, such as Art Girl Rising or Repaint History.
Why does it matter? I'm convinced that knowing abou
t the past is important to build the future and we need role models we can relate to.
Search engines deliver what we feed them. It is scary to witness that a search on Google about the “most famous visuals artists” delivers only 6 women out of 51 artists, perpetuating and reinforcing the existing gender stereotypes. That is why it is important to write and share about women artists or minorities.
From these reflections, I decided to create the collection: MOST FAMOUS VISUAL ARTISTS. It is composed of 54 NFTs, available on Voice.com , featuring 54 women artists from different centuries and continents, each represented by a flower, a traditional symbol of femininity in art.
The collection will be released on Saturday February 18 at 12 pm PST, while I am a guest speaker during a panel conversation about feminism and NFTs art practice at the Santa Monica Art Museum with artist Waambat, curator and writer Katie Peyton Hofstadter, and Web3 entrepreneur Dani Van de Sande.
The collection is phygital and each NFT will enable their collector to receive a Limited Print edition with the 54 flowers.
I diverted the eye-catching rainbow artwork from Takashi Murakami who recently released his Murakami.Flowers NFTs. Each flower is combined with the last name of a woman artist, consciously omitting their first names, to elevate them up to “brands” such as Picasso or Warhol.
As mentioned in the article "When last comes first: the gender bias of names" published by Cornwell University, studies found that people were more than twice as likely to call male professionals by their last name only, compared to equivalent female professionals. We say Basquiat, and Frida Kahlo. This example of gender bias, say researchers, may be contributing to gender inequality.
Each of my flowers is personalized for each artist, making references to their style, life and artworks. My goal is to raise awareness about the gender gap in our societies and how we need to rewrite history.
How did I choose the artists I featured? I chose some very famous ones such as Morisot or O'Keeffe and then I included artists who have less notoriety. I wanted to include artists from different centuries from the renaissance to nowadays and different continents. Wikipedia has been helpful as well as the database of Aware.
Artists included with links to their wikipedia pages:
Amy Sherald, Maria Prymachenko, Sally Gabori, Ana Mendieta, Artimesia Gentileschi, Marlene Dumas, Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun, Faith Ringgold, Paula Rego, Marilyn Minter, Louise Nevelson, Lee Krasner, Judy Chicago, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Marjorie Strider, Barbara Hepworth, Kara Walker, Niki de St Phalle, Hilma af Klint, Rosa Bonheur, Camille Claudel, Simone Leigh, Gabriele Munter, Marie Laurencin, Yoko Ono, Frida Kahlo, Yayoi Kusama, Augusta Savage, Alice Neel, Grace Hartigan, Lavinia Fontana, Marie Bracquemond, Sonia Delaunay, Alma Thomas, Laura Wheeler-Waring, Helen Frankenthaler, Barbara Kruger, Sofinosba Anguissola, Carmen Herrera, Louise Bourgeois, Tamara de Lempicka, Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Joan Mitchell, Agnes Martin, Elaine Sturtevant, Berthe Morisot, Hannah Höch, Ruth Asawa, Chen Peiqiu, Helene Schjerfbeck, Mary Cassatt, Katsushika Oi