Art Museum Visit

 I visited the CAM and they had an exhibition by Nicole Eisenman that spanned the entirety of the first floor of the museum. The range and number of works this woman has created is absolutely stunning, to say the least. In addition, many of her works have feminist themes that range from satire of traditional ways of depicting women's bodies (especially in a pin-up context) to themes of fraternity life. I chose her painting 'A Portrait of Celeste' for various reasons. The first is that the name of the woman in the painting implies a certain level of femininity, however, the portrayal of the woman is one that does not fit gender roles/stereotypes. This is because her hair is cut short and she is wearing a shirt with cutoff sleeves. Perhaps the intention of the artist was to challenge the viewer, in that a certain level of discomfort due to unfulfilled expectations can cause questions to be asked. The second reason I chose this particular painting was the manner in which the subject of the portrait was painted: there is a particularly high level of detail on her face but not her body. This seems to be the opposite of the norm in art and in the popular media where women’s bodies are celebrated-or one aspect of their body is emphasized above the others (like their legs, rear, or breasts). In addition, the over-feminization and over-sexualization of women’s bodies is the norm whereas Eisenman steers away from that and portrays a subculture of women’s expression: butch. Recently, I’ve been reading a lot more about this subculture and the stigmas attached to dressing masculine if one is female-bodied. I found a collection of photographs recently that was really quite beautiful: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/05/butch-meg-allen_n_5077649.html  it is definitely worth checking out and I believe it highlights a lot of the themes found in this portrait as well.