A new exhibition in Cardiff is showcasing the best of female artists in the city. How is it hoping to change the art scene and opportunities for women artists?
Some of the greatest works in the art world are named after women, from Venus de Milo to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and many more. For some of the greatest artists, women played the role of model or muse. But the names that circulate in the art world are male.
It’s a situation that Elizabeth Lepore Cooling wants to address. She has launched an exhibition of female artists in Cardiff and wants to give the female a platform to show their power.
“Why aren’t women rising to the top?” says Elizabeth, the manager of the city’s West Wharf Gallery. “We are giving them an opportunity to showcase their talents. That’s why we’re doing this today. Hopefully, people will see what they’re doing by their work, and they will be elevated to the top.”
An exhibition dedicated to women, “women creatives” will open from Thursday to Saturday at the Jacobs building this week. The artists in this exhibition are women from different fields, and they bring their own works and creative experiences to the exhibition to share with visitors.
“In the art college, mostly women are studying arts. We’ve seen that there are a lot of women artists now because they are freed from the home and they want a career. ” says Elizabeth.
In celebration of International Women’s Month, West Wharf Gallery has invited six female artists from China, the United Kingdom and Sweden. The exhibition has deliberately set to open on March 14, one week after the International Day of Women, curator Elizabeth explained, “We are celebrating one week beyond everybody else. So that on the time they’ve done everybody else, they come to us and have a look at what women are doing and what we’ve decided to do exhibits.”
With the rise of the feminist movement, people have begun to pay more attention to female power, but there are still many obstacles, which are very obvious in the art field. For instance, female artists do not get the coverage they deserve. A survey in London found that only five percent of galleries gave equal space to male and female artists.
The curators Elizabeth at West Wharf Gallery wants more female students to have the opportunity to show themselves and says,“We are finding that there are more and more women in art college during the degree in art, all different types of art. We’re reflecting this in our exhibition today. We showcasing what women artists are doing, because there are no not too many famous ideologies. ”
Each of the women writers invited has a unique creative experience. It is worth mentioning that one of the female artists named Charlotte Vickery has no artistic training before, but she began to contact painting because of a serious accident and got recovery from painting. This art exhibition also displays her creation collection in the recovery process, allowing visitors to see the perseverance and strength of women through watching different stages of painting creation. Behind women’s works are more common experiences that can arouse people, and their creative ability can not be ignored.
West Wharf Gallery has also made a lot of efforts in the early stage of the exhibition layout. In the early stage, it invited female artists of different ages from different countries with distinctive personalities. In order to let more people realize that age and work field are never the conditions restricting women.
Bryan van Duyn, the other director of the gallery, consulted with the artists and thought about how to display the artist’s work. He said,“We try to find our own space for each artist’s work, like when a visitor looks at an exhibition wall and wants to show multiple sides of the world. We also try to place similar types of works, similar in style, landscape or name, but in the end, we hope that visitors will see a variety of female works, abstract or realistic.”
Ms. Elizabeth said that in the future she would continue to insist on providing more opportunities for female artists to exhibit their works, and said,“Art exhibitions are a good investment in the career development of these artists. Because you can buy a contemporary painting. If they make progress, your investment is very good. If it doesn’t progress and you like it, that’s enough.”