FOR OUR 'THROUGH HER EYES' SERIES - EJITS SHARED HER VIEWPOINT ON BEING A FEMALE ARTIST
What does it mean to be a woman artist?
This probably sounds a bit trite, but you know you never really think of yourself as a woman artist you're just an artist, but to me if I am really thinking about it I guess it's about exploring your voice in the visual format, and by that I mean digging deep and seeing the things that you love, the things that sort of spark inspiration.
The things for me that I loved in childhood and don't want to let go of. A lot of my work is very cartoonish, it's about creating characters that are pleasing. I choose colours and that are like bubblegum and bright and will be really cheerful, and some of that meant exploring like this idea of femininity. A lot of my colours I suppose some people would describe as a feminine but I never really thought that we actually hated pink when I was growing up because it represented femininity and I was a tomboy! I just wanted to draw and skate and paint, and didn't really think about my gender very much.
As I came into the sphere of being in a career as an artist there was some growing sense of having to overcome the fear of taking up space as a woman and pursuing a career doing what I enjoy the most, which feels like a real privilege and then on top of that having to sort of present that to an audience and to the public so that I can make a career out of it that opened my eyes up to how women are taught to be small and not take up space, and be happy with what we've got and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to do what I loved and I think that's what that means to me as being a woman artist is getting to do what you love and getting to share your perspective with other people.
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How would you define female gaze?
I guess female gaze as I understand it, is kind of the antidote to the male gaze, its umm where as previously the portrayal of women would be as like objects of desire, the female gaze is like portraying powerful strong women that have agency and that are real, they're not just beautiful things. In my work obviously my characters are really cartoony, they're not real people but I do try to give them life, give them agency, give them character - obviously because I'm a character creator. What I do sort of play with my in my work is gender, and I'm not very nice prescriptive when it comes to like what gender my characters are. I like to give it a little bit of ambiguity and in some instances play with gender like 'Pink Beard'. My mermaid, bearded, bright pink character - they are both male and female 'cause a mermaid is obviously usually represented as a beautiful woman with the whole shell bra thing going and 'Pink Beard' has a masive pink beard and a pirate hat and sort of takes two opposing ideals and mashes them together and that's kind of where I come from when creating a character, its umm, yeah not really prescribing a gender to it at all but I am just having fun with it!
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How has your identity as a female artist shaped your artistic practice?
As I said before I grew up as a bit of a tomboy so super identify as a very feminine woman, but through my exploration, and the things that I really love, I found, you know that I love bright colour,s I love pinks purples, teals, yellows - very feminine colours actually accidentally, I didn't mean for my work to be feminine but it sort of ended up that way. I'm really drawn to cuteness, like I really like 'kawai' Japanese character design and that's mixed with classic American animation animation. because I studied animation so I guess the feminine side of me comes through maybe more than I intended it to! The round shapes, the colours - wanting for my work to be joy and silliness with a little edge, with a little weird edge 'cause I'm interested in some sort of magic and mythology, and weirdness in general, so that's all mashed up together.
In my practise itself I think I'm really aware of sort of giving and being, not of service but of - well maybe of service, like where I paint a big meal and people gain something from it they love seeing it every day because it cheers them up, like that comes into my work as an idea of like I want to put something out in the world thats positive, and joyful and that can sort of brighten someone's day and in terms of like other areas of my practice I give workshops, I want to give, I want my work to be about people finding lightness and enjoyment and learning all of that in there and I think there is something quite like naturally giving in women and females. I guess it's the caregiver in us, and I think that does in for my practice quite heavily. I want to put something out in the world that creates a positive impact on people's days, like it cheers you up, it gives you a bright sunny feeling and a bit of a giggle because you're silly that's what my work's all about.
(listen here)
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