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"Not Only Can Women Paint But..."
A selection of works curated from the Self Portrait Prize Exhibition, 2019This curated selection of works showcases the variety of media through which female artists have used the Self Portrait Prize to explore the concept of self. It serves as a celebration of the social and cultural diversity of contemporary female artistic practices. It is presented as part of the Collections ongoing commitment to offering long term opportunities to previous prize entrants.
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“Women can’t paint, women can’t write ...” (Virginia Woolf, The Lighthouse)
“She could have done it differently of course; the colour could have been thinned and faded; the shapes etherealised; that was how Paunceforte would have seen it. But then she did not see it like that. She saw the colour burning on a framework of steel; the light of a butterfly’s wing lying upon the arches of a cathedral. Of all that only a few random marks scrawled upon the canvas remained. And it would never be seen; never be hung even, and there was Mr Tansley whispering in her ear, “Women can’t paint, women can’t write ...” (Virginia Woolf, The Lighthouse).
The refrain of Mr Tansley whispering “Women can’t paint, women can’t write ...” echoes throughout Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. The book itself, widely acclaimed as one of the finest 20th century novels, is a defiance of the latter statement. Likewise, Vanessa Bell, prominent Bloomsbury painter and Woolf’s sister, controverted the former with her astounding body of work. Not only did she prove that women can paint, but famed for her designs and textiles, Bell demonstrated the practices and skills of female artists extend well beyond the media of paint.
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Angela Palmer
Beneath the Surface: Self-Portrait based on MRI, 2019
Ink hand drawn on acrylic sheets
20 x 20 x 20cm
£7,500
In 2019, the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize Exhibition saw an extraordinary range of media used by female artists to depict the Self. Ranging from knitted acrylics and MRI scans to wooden structures and ceramics, the 2019 Exhibition reveals the ways in which this legacy of innovative, multimedia women artists has continued into the 21st century. The works on show here presenting an overview of the different ways and means female artists have, and continue to, explore the topic of Self within their own practices.
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Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize 2019
"Not Only Can Women Paint but..."
Permanent viewing_room
