Female Art

Female ART

Female Art deals with the study of the Female nature, its role in the individual identity and life of the female and in the social identity and life of the community, through studies of biology, mythology, anthropology and dance. Some common motifs permeate any writings on the female principle, the idea of cycle, the idea of time as cyclical instead of linear, a close relationship to Nature, an identification with a holistic view of the universe, of an eternal whole, an acceptance and celebration of the body and sexuality, an acceptance of Man’s role as part of Nature instead of its owner, the close relationship between the celebration of the female and the celebration of Nature…
The pieces are images, icons, capture some of the moments and transitions that happen, at very different scales, from very personal, to microscopic, to totemic.

Into the Dark

"Eve" (detail)

This body of work is a first step towards understanding the female identity, starting at the beginning of human life and consciousness, at the base, my base, my body. This first moment is the coalescing of the individual body, the material biological self, out of the chaotic Whole. From the depth of the undifferentiated, primordial soup, awakens a screaming body in the dark, a blind body of flesh and instinct.
The biological pieces are based on neurological research on the process of hereditary memory (the biological foundation for instinct) and fear.

"Pandora" (detail)

Two paintings stand for a much quieter and private awakening of the body. Named after Eve and Pandora who both stand for the creation of Difference, the idea through which mankind understood its passage from a non-Time, non-change, no-season space to the "dark", the unknown where they actually live, grow, procreate and change. But they also represent the awakening of sexual consciousness and have a very ambiguous role in contemporary conception of the female body and sexuality, where Eve stands for the passive/instinctual awakening of the sexual body, Pandora, sinister or silly, is an active/willful decision maker.
The dance performance “Out of the Dark” by INOOR (Karen Hoffman, Erika May and Joana Ricou) expressed through motion and rhythm the awakening of the body. From the undifferentiate whole, the bodies spiral and concentrate to be born.

The Outside
The body awakened, our first experience is not necessarily ourselves nor everything else/the other but our relationship to the outside. The body becomes aware of physical and emotional sensations, it sees movement, it is talked and interacted with, it observes changes happening around as part/consequence of its movement. This relationship can be conciliatory, contradictory or indifferent. Our hand and strength take shape in our understanding as we use it to manipulate and move, the same way our idea of self starts to be defined by this relationship and the reaction of the environment.