Elizabeth
Bevington

I keep returning to the way in which the no-mans-land of social media creates and manipulates a certain presentation of the individual, particularly the way this affects women. How do I represent myself/ how should I represent myself/ how do others represent themselves/ how do others representation of themselves impact my own representation of myself/ why do we engage/ how do we engage/ what is the aim/ does it matter? I paint because I love to challenge my own and others’ consideration of what it is to receive and to produce visual imagery in the immediacy our current world of live feed, apps and filters. I enjoy the subtlety of painting. I mean that whilst I create my work with a multitude of research and thoughtfulness, in the final work there may only be quiet visual references to my influences or sources. I am conscious that not all of my thinking appears directly onto the canvas but sometimes this is what I strive for – an ambiguity. My recent series is bursting with bright pink, girlish hues that give immediate connotations of girly and sexist clichés within Western culture. It is exactly this initial reaction, a dismissal of the shallow ‘girly-ness’, in which I am interested. Contemporary female artists such as Michaela Eichwald and Rita Ackermann have attracted my attention for their use of similar pinks and reds – applied in thick layers of mixed media with titles referring to the female Nude and female imagery. They, and other contemporaries, are paving the way for female positive art through the process of re-appropriating worn out clichés and colours. I would my own work to be follow in the same vein as these Contemporary female artists. I have taken inspiration from earlier female artists, which has developed my recurrent feature of my current work – the central line. The line could draw attention to the no-mans-land of social media. Closer inspection of my painting reveals imperfections in symmetry. These imperfections test the distance between the real and the virtual individual; how one might, or might not, reflect the other. I became interested in the use of mirroring within earlier works of art by prominent female artists. Frances and Margaret Macdonald formed half of the Glasgow Four, which most famously included Charles Rennie Macintosh. In both the Macdonald sisters’ work, they used the mirror image as a motif through which to depict the female form. I discovered the history of female artists using the same technique. For example, Barbara Hepworth’s Two Forms (Divided Circle) Bronze, 1969 and most importantly the earlier work Frida Kahlo’s The Two Fridas Oil on Canvas (173.5 x 173 cm), 1939. Whether Kahlo’s is a depiction of two versions of herself (before or after her divorce), or of herself and her imaginary childhood friend (interpretations vary), the piece, and particularly the composition, speaks clearly of the female self and body. My recent series of work shadows this representation the female body as a mirrored image. The motif gives empowerment to the female representation. Not only does it gain strength from its reference to previous renowned female artists who have used it for the promotion of the female cause, but also in the sturdy, recognisable visual aesthetic that the reflection provides. In  the world of social media, I think the duality female self gains an important new meaning in reference to the false reflection between the reality of the female body and the female body on social media platforms. This complex duality of social media is compelling to me. As I have grown up, social media has developed from being a separate activity from our real lives to becoming a lifestyle choice. Only filters and apps now help us to distinguish between reality and the reality of social media. The difference between the two blurs more steadily. In my work, by using the central line, I think about these ideas as I manipulate the level of symmetry in my painting. I choose which images lie on either side of the line. It varies throughout my paintings as to how blurred that line becomes. I have a playful attitude with aspects of my work such as colour and surface. Colour is what I react to with the most excitement and depth of surface is what holds my attention. I have experimented with furniture, mirrors, nail varnish, lipstick and eyeliners. Makeup is another area of interest in the discussion of female body imagery and consciousness. It enables women to be expressive of themselves but also can represent the restrictive cultural expectations of women’s beauty standards within a Western patriarchal society. I think the most essential aspect of my artistic practice is that it is painting rather than another medium. The entire process of painting allows me to be thoughtful and considerate and to produce a visual outcome that is so slow and careful, far away from the immediacy of smart phone photography. To conclude, I am enthusiastic to apply to take part in such an exciting show.