Taking things personally

Red Lips proyect / Political Statement / The Personal is Political / Identity Politics / Womanhood / Femininity / Gender / Essentialist Biology / Social Construction / Feminism / Female Body Experience / Vulva Art

28 portraits of women's red lips as vaginas involves addressing the collective 'woman'. The gesture of using red liptick can be for some women empowering, a visual sign that is an unclear statement but that nevertheless catches atenttion, underlines their femininity and presents it in a public way. Is painting your lips red an oppressive sign that marks you as a sex object for the male gaze? Is it a beauty or fashion ritual that celebrates aesthetic pleasure or an insecure need to make yourself look beautiful to be worthy? Or can it be an empowering public expression of your female body experience that implies assertion? Ultimately what red lips mean is defined by the wearer and by the reader. The reader can have a strong role in defining you, specially if it is a mayority, and if they hold onto strong social stereotypes. You will feel like others define your red, what it is for. Does the wearer have the same power? Can your atittude, body language, speech and, in general, public presence actively define you?

The 28 prints are not as ambiguous as the real gesture, since they direct the meaning towards the menstruating vagina through the impression of the physicality of the lips, turning them much more into the body realm through the direct imprint process, and also with the reference to the days of the fertile cycle. Of course here the artist's statement and art practice also plays a role.

I find more and more the idea of collective (and) portraiture problematic. The fact that I define the meaning of the artwork implies that I have a role in defining the portrayed subject, as 'woman empowered by a public sign of her body experience'. The subject of my work, the collective women, is not self-defining through it.
On the other hand, I propose a project in which 28 women actively participate if they feel engaged and identified with the idea... and I do not claim (does my artwork?) to represent a universal true womanhood.
On the other hand, I do want to address empowerment, and I do want to address oppression, that has social reality for many women.

Puting the project into a well-defined personal space, i.e. by not representing other women, just me; seems a solution that allows me to adress identity, gender and female empowerement from an individual standpoint. From personal experience one can also address social issues... But the use/participation of other women means more debate around the issues I'm interested in.