Starting in highschool, I was discouraged from making paintings that were meant to be ‘hung over the couch’. While I’m grateful for the shove my teachers gave me to step into the conceptual realms of art practice, I’ve been feeling the need to decorate and turn my works into ornaments meant to be admired for …
Category Archives: Essays
Can Mini Skirts and Feminism be Friends?
When a woman goes out wearing a miniskirt, an article of clothing most strongly associated with female sexuality, she becomes a symbol of two paradoxical ideas. On one hand, she is liberated through her rejection of traditional female images, such as the housewife, and is proud of her feminine sexuality. On the other hand, she …
The Role of Women in Surrealism
Surrealism was a gated realm created exclusively for male artists, the majority of whom objectified and fetishized women. For a female artist to unlock this gate, she had to fulfill the male artists’ need for narrowing the role of women down to an object of male desire. This conception of women blinded male Surrealists to …
Why Painting Has Been Kept Alive
Painting has been pronounced dead many times. Douglas Crimp, one of the main critics of painting, argues that painting has become old-fashioned. With the use of techniques such as appropriation, quotation and duplication, newer mediums like photography, film, and video are doing what painting has failed to do (Miles, Christopher). Yet, the majority of art …
Understanding power
When I say I am a Muslim, everyone knows what I am talking about. When I say I am a Daudi Bohra, I get blank looks. Daudi Bohra is a Muslim sect that believes in Allah and Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) as all other Muslims. However, we have our differences. One of these includes the way …
