Women at Work

Ella Kruglyanskaya +Caroline Walker + Carolee Schneemann

Caroline Walker

‘Women’s Work’ is Caroline Walker’s largest exhibition to date. The presentation comprises intimate portraits of women depicted in isolated settings and examines an often hidden female workforce, such as tailors and chambermaids.

The exhibition includes preparatory studies, small and large-scale paintings, 'Women’s Work' provides a unique insight into Walker’s artistic abilities.

Caroline Walker’s work is a point of influence for me and I am particularly drawn to her ‘Women’s Work’ Series and her ‘Birth Reflections’. I find her 'Women's Work' series inviting and problematic; this series highlights the ‘often unseen workforce, such as tailors and chambermaids’ (1). The paintings depict women in intimate spaces, often working. They appear to be unaware of our presence. They continue with their work. This is a similar method that I’ve employed with my 'Conversation with Friends' series: as if you are looking into their personal space and private conversations. Her works bridge the gap between the private and the public space; when is it ok to look at someone?

I find her work slightly problematic, as often in her ‘Women’s Work’ series, she is only painting and depicting a certain type of ‘Women’s Work’. The work she depicts often represents women from different cultures, cultures that are different from her own. these workers look exhausted and worn out. Although when I look at her work, I sometimes feel concerned about whose narrative she is representing. Is it all right that she is telling the story of others? Could she be taking their voice with her representation of these women? However, the work she is creating highlights the unseen work of many women and represents the stereotypical ideas we hold about women about labour and work. And for me, her work brings forward debates about women’s work and labour.

Carolee Schneemann

When studying during my foundation year, I was encouraged to read ‘The Story of Art’ by E.H.Gombrich ‘his first edition (1950) included zero women artists and even the sixteenth edition included only one’ 1)

Then later in my life when I started teaching art and exploring the art curriculum, I was horrified to see only one women artist on the schemes of work within an all-female art team. This highlighted to me why adults don’t often value the work of women artists within the same regard as a man. If we have never been taught about women’s art and shown their value, of course, women’s work sells for considerably less. ‘The highest price achieved by a contemporary female artist is $12.4m, while it is $91m for a man. If a painting is signed by a man it goes up in value, signed by a women it goes down’.

This pheromone is a commonly sad affair, the lack of representation of women and people of colour results in young people not seeing themselves as artists. Carolee Schneemann comical predictions of art education shows a hopeful and playful utopian view of art education in a reading she performed during ‘Intera Scroll’. ‘One further change will be the assembling of pioneer istorians- themselves discredited or forgotten by traditional masculine authority. In the year 2000, they will be on the required reading lists.’

The Story of Art within men (P10)
Recalculating Art BBC Sounds