'The Male Gaze' Front cover of folio. Canvas, embroidery, cardboard, glue. 23cm x 13cm x 5cm.
'The Male Gaze' back cover of folio.
'The Male Gaze' Inside front of folio. Female looking back.
'The Male Gaze' Inside of folio.
'Venus of Willendorf' Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
'Nefertiti' From a photo by Philip Pikart. Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
'The Fragrant Concubine' thought to have been painted by a Jesuit painter to the Qing court, Giuseppe Castiglione. Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
'Snowdrop' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
'Woman in a Hat with Pom Poms and a Printed Blouse' Pablo Picasso, 1962.(Picasso once said "There are only two types of women: goddesses and doormats"). Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
Detail taken from 'Bacchanal of the Andrians' Titian. 1523-24Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
'St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyre' Stained glass, Florida, artist not known. Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
'Kneeling Mother and Child' 1907. Paula Modersohn-Becker. Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
'Self Portrait of the Artist' 2015. Canvas, embroidery thread 15 x 10 cm
'The Male Gaze'. Bag made to hold and protect the work.
The Male Gaze
POSTCARDS
The term, ‘The Male Gaze’ was first developed by the feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in the essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975). In this she proposed that an asymmetry of power between the genders is a controlling force in cinema; and that the male gaze is constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, which is deeply rooted in the ideologies and discourses of patriarchy.
John Berger’s book ‘Ways of Seeing’ (1972) showed the continuities between post-Renaissance European paintings of women and imagery from latter-day posters and girly magazines, by juxtaposing the different images – showing how they similarly rendered women as objects. Berger argued that this continuity constrained how certain forms of femininity are understood, and therefore the terms on which women are able to live their lives.
‘The Male Gaze’ is a term we learn about as artists - we read the notes and look at the images and move on to the next theory. It was during a recent Crit that the term really struck home – the way women are represented in art – by men and women, and the absolute ‘blind spot’ that exists with the way women are still being represented this way. Women ‘exist to be looked at, posed in such a way that her body was displayed to the eye of the viewer’.
Look how men are portrayed in art alone – farmers, pioneers, explorers, adventurers – or as that poem goes ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggarman, Thief.’ Where are the women? Presumably at home posing naked on the bed, waiting for her conqueror to return.
As a visitor to galleries and a collector of postcards (limit to six per visit) around the world I could say I am complicit in this continued portrayal of women. The choice to make postcards followed on from my collecting them and then having the idea to make a Postcard Folio to hold them. They could have been drawn but stitching is a medium I work in and it would allow the creation of the images and it pushes that tool a little more.
Canvas was used with embroidery thread. The images were taken mostly from Wiki Commons and were photoshopped first to remove the background, to alter the size, to change colours and to change the files extensions (jpeg) so that could be used in the digitizing software.
The appropriated images were then opened in the Bernina Software and digitised and different densities were tested and stitches counted to ascertain if the stitch count would be too high. If there were too many stitches the canvas would buckle.
The Portfolio went together well, however, once the postcards were stitched and it was decided to use two layers of canvas they became twice as thick and therefore the folio needed to increase in size. Another was made – this time allowing for the thickness of the canvas both back and front.
If making next time with canvas I would place a layer of white interfacing on the board to reduce the colour of it coming through the canvas. I would also lower the stitch density to reduce buckling of the stitches.
Additionally, a Clam shell box would be a more suitable – design wise – final container to hole the rectangular Folio.
This has been a challenging and technique extending exercise. There is so much more about the portrayal of women that needs to be explored in the future and so many more books to make.
POSTCARDS
The term, ‘The Male Gaze’ was first developed by the feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in the essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975). In this she proposed that an asymmetry of power between the genders is a controlling force in cinema; and that the male gaze is constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, which is deeply rooted in the ideologies and discourses of patriarchy.
John Berger’s book ‘Ways of Seeing’ (1972) showed the continuities between post-Renaissance European paintings of women and imagery from latter-day posters and girly magazines, by juxtaposing the different images – showing how they similarly rendered women as objects. Berger argued that this continuity constrained how certain forms of femininity are understood, and therefore the terms on which women are able to live their lives.
‘The Male Gaze’ is a term we learn about as artists - we read the notes and look at the images and move on to the next theory. It was during a recent Crit that the term really struck home – the way women are represented in art – by men and women, and the absolute ‘blind spot’ that exists with the way women are still being represented this way. Women ‘exist to be looked at, posed in such a way that her body was displayed to the eye of the viewer’.
Look how men are portrayed in art alone – farmers, pioneers, explorers, adventurers – or as that poem goes ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggarman, Thief.’ Where are the women? Presumably at home posing naked on the bed, waiting for her conqueror to return.
As a visitor to galleries and a collector of postcards (limit to six per visit) around the world I could say I am complicit in this continued portrayal of women. The choice to make postcards followed on from my collecting them and then having the idea to make a Postcard Folio to hold them. They could have been drawn but stitching is a medium I work in and it would allow the creation of the images and it pushes that tool a little more.
Canvas was used with embroidery thread. The images were taken mostly from Wiki Commons and were photoshopped first to remove the background, to alter the size, to change colours and to change the files extensions (jpeg) so that could be used in the digitizing software.
The appropriated images were then opened in the Bernina Software and digitised and different densities were tested and stitches counted to ascertain if the stitch count would be too high. If there were too many stitches the canvas would buckle.
The Portfolio went together well, however, once the postcards were stitched and it was decided to use two layers of canvas they became twice as thick and therefore the folio needed to increase in size. Another was made – this time allowing for the thickness of the canvas both back and front.
If making next time with canvas I would place a layer of white interfacing on the board to reduce the colour of it coming through the canvas. I would also lower the stitch density to reduce buckling of the stitches.
Additionally, a Clam shell box would be a more suitable – design wise – final container to hole the rectangular Folio.
This has been a challenging and technique extending exercise. There is so much more about the portrayal of women that needs to be explored in the future and so many more books to make.