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dustyhair posted an update in the group
Artists & Designers 9 years, 6 months ago Hi everyone! I’m new to Autostraddle, and I’m trying to find other artists who make work that is outside of a heteronormative/gender binary narrative. I’d really like to start taking my own artwork in a new direction, but want to be educated about the women who have come before me who have talked about homosexuality and gender identity in their work.
Cool! that sounds really interesting and kind of similar to what I’m trying to do with my work. Do you have some artists in mind that you are looking at already? What style(s) of art are you working in?
I’m actually struggling to find other female artists who talk about female homosexuality. I have found plenty of male artists who do. I don’t know if I’m looking in the wrong places? I create figurative ceramic sculpture and for the past year have been using it to talk about my own gender/sexuality discoveries. I’m currently using visual cues from puppets and sideshows to express certain undertones of emotion. Catharine Opie is about the only artist I can find information about. Any help is very welcome!!
For strongly visible lesbian and bisexual presence check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Lesbian_Art_Show
Especially, http://tinyurl.com/ksfwp28 and http://tinyurl.com/n2acgle
There’s a lot of photographers and video artists documenting their experiences of (or about) being lesbian, queer, trans, and in drag. It’s less easy to find artists who directly document their relationships in more traditional fine art media. Most of the artists I know have experiences that relate to their work but aren’t often made explicit (at least by a simple search.)
Just typing queer textile artists into google shows some amazing fibre artists looking at the experience of sexuality and art styles traditionally associated with women. http://tinyurl.com/l5peejw
Mediums to look into would include craft art, quilting, textiles, installation, as well as body art and performance as that often focuses on sexuality, human body, and experience of difference or oppression. Feminist art and politics (or a reaction against) is also quite a good reference point, as many queer artists fall under that umbrella.
Watching for queer scholarships and awards can lead to emerging artists. Also, some theory on ‘queer ceramics’ http://queerceramics.wordpress.com/
And LGBT friendly galleries and websites http://artscenetoday.com/artist_resources/lgbt-list-of-museums-and-galleries/
http://www.queer-arts.org/circe/index.html
And, if you are interested in artists outside of the queer bracket (at least as far as I am aware) Wangechi Mutu is an incredible collage artist using the human body to explore imprinted meaning, dislocation, fragmentation, and diaspora. She describes the female body as carrying the culture, myths, and violence of its society. http://tinyurl.com/lomn4pb
:D When I actually thought about it, most queer artists I knew of were male identified or not specifically looking at relationships or their sexuality. Felix Gonzalez Torres was the first that came to mind. I don’t know a lot about ceramic art though and I’m sure there’s plenty of fantastic artists working within that area.
Thank you so so much for all of that information! I can’t wait to dive in and look at all the links. I really appreciate it. Yeah, in Ceramics, there are lots of amazing artists talking about female sexuality, female politics, etc. but every single person I think about or look at as an example is coming at the subject matter from a heteronormative perspective. I’m still making the artwork I need to make that talks about my experience as a queer woman from a deeply religious/conservative background, but it would be nice to know what other artists have come before me. Thank you again for your help!!