My gendered art
Recently, two of my paintings were in a show at a local gallery. At the show’s opening, an acquaintance, an accomplished artist whom I respect, described my paintings as “very masculine.” My work is abstract—color and form and movement—so what sets it apart as masculine? Does the color palette, lines and shapes, depth and dimensionality, or the level of detail in a painting reflect femininity or masculinity?
How masculine are my paintings? I pondered this question as I considered other abstract paintings on display, mostly from women artists. The paintings varied widely—shapes and images flowing sensuously across the canvas in some, their margins nebulous, almost ambiguous, while in others bold, contrasting colors and sharp lines dominated the field. Some paintings were flat, sparse and static, others three-dimensionally complex and fluid. While some paintings struck me as more masculine or feminine than others, I could not identify a uniquely masculine or feminine feature that set them apart. Would others see the paintings in the same way? Gender is not dichotomous and is manifested in each of us by an assortment of “masculine” and “feminine” qualities. Consequently, I suspect that we each assess a painting by our own uniquely subjective gender-related criteria.
Consider my paintings from the show (see below). My dark and cool palette, with bold and assertive highlights, sharply defined shapes, and complex movement suggest masculinity according to some, while the fluidity of interacting, curvilinear shapes suggest femininity. However you view them, my paintings must inevitably emerge from my gendered self, as do the paintings of other artists.
Blue Tangle
Escape
Over the decades, studies focused on gender differences in drawings made by boys and girls show that, as children develop, cultural and social conditioning influence what they choose to draw and how they draw. There is also evidence indicating that we come into the world already possessing a more or less masculine or feminine aesthetic. One study, considered free drawings of young children with respect to motifs, colors, figure compositions, and expression.1 They reported that boys preferred moving objects, dark or cold colors, and a bird’s-eye-perspective, whereas girls most often drew human figures and flowers using pastel and warm colors, and tended to arrange objects horizontally in a row on the ground (the drawings shown below are typical for young children). They concluded that androgen exposure during fetal life may contribute to shaping masculine aesthetics in children’s drawings.
Drawing of 5 year-old boy
Drawing of 5 year-old girl
These findings suggest that we may come into the world with a tendency to relate to our environments in particular ways. Those tendencies may then be modified and expressed in different ways. In any case, there are tremendous variations in forms of artistic expression and my voice, whether masculine or feminine, is only one among many that are worth listening to.
Peace . . .
1. Iijima, M., et al. 2001. Sex Differences in Children's Free Drawings: A Study on Girls with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Hormones and Behavior 40:99-104.
