Thelma Van Rensburg

artkapture (41)in #resteemator • 8 years ago

ARTIST STATEMENT

The materiality of the female biological body has for the most part been excluded from representation in art and society. My art is aimed at finding alternative forms of female representation: therefore, forms that will re-present the material female body as a voluminous body and not only two-dimensional surface as propagated by the mass media. My art thus addresses representations of women that stress women’s corporeality as perfected surface and commodity. Such representations also serve the purpose of deconstructing phallocentric representations of women as object of the male gaze.

My art addresses long-standing issues pertaining to female body politics, women, femininity, patriarchal oppression and feminism. I comment on issues such as the representation of women in the media and its one-sided focus on beauty and desirability. Devices of the mass media such as advertising, advertorials and beauty advice impose nearly impossible standards of beauty on women thereby convincing them that they are valued only for their appearance.

Shut Up and Be Still
University of Pretoria Masters Exhibition 2016

Thelma van Rensburg
Forensic look-bloody body
Ink and watercolour on Fabriano paper