This body of work is about brining awareness to important women in the history of the United States through the depiction of their statues. Some past works I have done was a project to create a piece of art that represents a particular word. The word I was given was “monumental”. I also grew up right outside of Washington D.C., so I grew up going on field and day trips into the city and being surrounded by these beautiful monuments. However, they were mainly of men and barely any women.
Many of the figures I picked are a selection of well-known female figures and other not so widely known. I feel that by doing this, I am raising them all to the same level of importance and that no one figure is more important than the others. These pieces bring awareness to these figures and their stories that would normally be ignored. I want the viewer to appreciate not just the beauty of the statue itself but also the individuals’ history. My research has included the history behind these women and also the reasoning behind why these statues were made. I also focused on why women have been marginalized in history and try to show the importance of women’s history. During my research, I started to notice that there was a huge disparity between male and female historical figures. Statues of male figures seemed to get the most attention and just more emphasize on importance surrounding the individual. I started to question history.
There are countless number of women that also contributed history, but have been forgotten or ignored over the supposed greater importance of male figures. Women have traditionally either been completely written out of history or have been portrayed in sex-stereotypical roles, like wives, mothers, daughters, or mistresses. I do not limit myself to just historical figures, but also paint allegorical representations of an abstract idea, whether it is Victory, Hope, or Justice to name a few. In history, the representation of a particular virtue or aspect are most of the time embodied as a woman. I believe by layering materials in my paintings, it represents the many layers of history. Some more apparent than others. My goal is to have the viewer question what they have been taught and to research and learn more about the people that have been left behind in this saga, that we call history.