Love and Art

Mothers Love

Mary Kelly

When she started out, just getting heard required a shock to the system. In the mid-70s, her installation at the ICA, Post-Partum Document, analysed her newborn son’s development, their emotional bond, his early attempts at writing – and framed and hung his stained nappies on the gallery walls. “On display at the ICA … dirty nappies!” ran the Standard’s outraged headline.

For the love of god

-Damien Hirst

‘For the Love of God’, a platinum skull set with diamonds, is one of Hirst’s most important and widely recognised works. Its raw materials define it as an artwork of unprecedented scale. The 32 platinum plates making up ‘For the Love of God’ are set with 8,601 VVS to flawless pavé-set diamonds, weighing a massive 1,106.18 carats. The teeth inserted into the jaw are real and belong to the original skull.

‘For the Love of God’ acts as a reminder that our existence on earth is transient. Hirst combined the imagery of classic memento mori with inspiration drawn from Aztec skulls and the Mexican love of decoration and attitude towards death. He explains of death: “You don’t like it, so you disguise it or you decorate it to make it look like something bearable – to such an extent that it becomes something else.

Feminism and Art

Feminist art is art by women artists made consciously in the light of developments in feminist art theory in the early 1970's.

The feminist art movement emerged in the late 1960's amidst the fervor of anti-war demonstration as well as civil and queer right movements. Hearkening back to the utopian ideals of early twentieth-century modernist movements.

Feminist artists sought to change the world around them through their art, focusing on intervening in the established art world, the art historical canon, as well as everyday social interactions.

As artist Suzanna Lacy declared, the goal of Feminist art was to "influence cultural attitudes and transform stereotypes." There is no singular medium or style that unites Feminist artists, as they often combined aspects from various movements and media, including Conceptual art, Body art, and video art into works that presented a message about women's experience and the need for gender equality.

Feminist art created opportunities and spaces that previously did not exist for women and minority artists, as well as paved the path for the identity art and activist art of the 1980's.

Mary Kelly

Mary Kelly is known for her project-based work, addressing questions of sexuality, identity and historical memory in the form of large-scale narrative installations. She studied painting in Florence, Italy, in the sixties, and then taught art in Beirut, Lebanon during a time of intense cultural activity known as the “golden age.”

In the 1970s, she pinned dirty nappies to a gallery wall. Today, Mary Kelly spins war memorials from mountains of tumble-dryer lint. At her home in Bel Air, the feminist pioneer reveals 40 years of shock tactics.

Linda Sterling

Linda is a visual artist who creates photomontages. Taking one image as base image and adding another/part of another photo even an object on top to hide a key part off image underneath.

Linda's artistic work is very media related and was mainly vex.

Cindy Sherman

She studied at Buffalo State College, concentrating on photography, which she maintained is the appropriate medium of expression in our media dominated civilisation. Her photographs are portraits of herself in various scenarios that parody stereotypes of woman. A panoply of characters and settings is drawn from sources of popular culture: old movies, television soaps and pulp magazines. Sherman rapidly rose to celebrity status in the international art world during the early 1980's with the presentation of a series of untiled 'film stills' in various group and solo exhibitions across America and Europe.