Art is constantly changing and constantly moving. There are so many artists out there who should be getting more recognition. In this article I will be focusing on looking at artists who focus their work on exploring gender, feminism and its impact on society. If you want to brighten up your Instagram and explore a new wave of young artists, here they are:
Lucy Le Brocq is a photographer and artist who uses the medium of documentary photography to explore gender, society and the individual. Le Brocq uses photography to explore the boundaries between lived experience and the artificial. Her recent work could be interpreted to be exploring the body as a landscape through the use of what is captured.
Chris Hawkes is a Brighton based artist who’s work references Pop Art, Post Painterly Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism. Hawke’s work uses bold block colours on which they carefully place expressive marks and imagery. The pieces are personal and create a narrative, their work also has a focus on gender and exploring its boundaries.
Kate Kelly is a Cambridge based painter who specialises in the figure. She has curated multiple exhibitions and her work has a fierce focus on exploring the boundaries of gender. Within her work she is looking to create a physical space for women, by doing this she is asking questions about what it means to be a woman today. Her practise explores the female gaze, the power of gaze and the need for consent. She does this by juxtaposing the detailing of traditional oil painting with flattening pictorial planes, she uses very bold colour and patterns to allow all elements of her work to stand out. This helps the figures to stand out in their backgrounds, but also allows the backgrounds to hold their own space.
Rebekka Macht is one of many young artists based in Cologne, Germany and uses her work to detail her own journey with gender and race. Macht is currently working on a large-scale portrait series of women, these paintings use incredibly expressive brush marks and are very energic, this almost showing Macht’s feelings within her work. Whilst the brush strokes are quite agreesive in application, her work also shows a tenderness with the depiction of the women involved.
Sola Olulode is an artist who explores figurative painting as a window into the lives of black womxn, femmes and their exploration of sexuality, individuality and relationships. Olulode’s practise is influenced by their own culture and the community they live in; something that is deeply reflected in their work. Olulode uses flattened planes where the patterns are loose and playful, this creates an energic feel which almost translate to movement. Their brushwork is loose and sometimes scratched textured backgrounds add an extra depth to the movement of the figures depicted; almost creating a dance.
Sophie Peache is currently based in New Orleans, her latest work was a mural for the Nola Mural Project, which is a project in favour of increasing free speech for Artists in New Orleans. Her personal work almost has a dream-like quality, possibly taking inspiration from Dali. Her practise could be described as figurative, she explores aspects of sexuality and her use of colour explores how all people are one and the same.
Ellie Walker is an Essex based artist who creates pieces that are almost like visual diary entries to explore her experience with anxiety. Her work is very strong and has figurative elements and bold colours. She is purposely naïve in her mark making, and you get a true sense of play with the pieces she creates. The composition of this young artists art creates really strong internal monologues for the figures and objects depicted, the gender of the figures depicted are often genderless or their gender has been obscured.
Michaela Yearwood-Dan is a London based artist whose work responds to the times around us. She paints ‘modern life’, and explores themes of culture, gender, class, race and nature. Her painting of are made up of thick glossy-ly applied paint, which really help to show the texture and movement that nature has in the real world. Big leafy plants often fill half of the painting, with flatter colours filling the rest; this creates an incredible juxtaposition.
Jess Zaydner is one of London’s based young artists, who explores the male gaze and tries to bring a humanizing and substantiating quality to her subjects. Her work has a dream-like quality that sometimes explores sinister undertones. She often allows the underpainting to show through her work, which helps create the layered complexity of life that she is exhibiting. Her work deals with very raw human emotions, that almost engulf you into the work.
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