September Artists rock!

September and School is back...
One thing that was very apparent on our visit to Jupiter Artlands was that the balance of gender in the creation of art is starting to equalize. The pieces are equally striking, disturbing and provocative whoever creates them. In

some ways perhaps the path to equality has seen female artists choose to use very emotive concepts in order to produce artworks which evoke an emotional and visual connection to the work?

I certainly felt that about some of the sculptures of the small girls whose faces are hidden: what would we see on their faces if we could see them? Is that part of the strength of the pieces – to allow the viewer to project their own faces?
The collected river samples all looked too clear. We wanted to find the flawed sample with cloudy sediment. Or I did...
The enormous silver shoe was also a fabulous subversion of a domestic object – pots and pans of all sizes – making an incredibly vertiginous female shoe. Again a female artist. My husband said it took him quite a while to see what the original objects were.
A lot of the pieces we lingered at were by female artists, and as a mum to two girls it is important that they see female role models in the world. One daughter is already proclaiming a desire to be an artist, the other a chef so lets hope they enter their careers with a determination that women are equal to men instead of having to work harder than everybody else to succeed.
My girls have joined both football and rugby clubs this year! Go girls!