Topic: Paintings about women
Ruth34611's photo
Fri 01/15/10 08:57 AM
www.lynsouthworth.com

This is my mom's art and website. :smile:


About the paintings: These paintings explore the contradictions, tensions, beauty, and fragility of women’s life experiences. The subject of “The Interview”, for example, is judgment, evaluation, and criticism by others. The “Woman with Water” series is about body image issues, showing skin versus showing self, and connecting with nature in a world culture that downplays the need for either sex to be natural.


The paintings reflect my passion and concern for women as they pass through the external stages of life -- puberty, marriage, work, motherhood, and ageing -- and in the often contradictory accumulation of words, expectations, and roles that shape women from the inside, like geologic fault lines pulling and pushing below the surface. In my view, women are pictured everywhere yet visible almost nowhere, ever-present as stereotypes and never present as thinking, feeling, truly human beings. I am motivated to paint these pictures to bring that condition into balance.


no photo
Fri 01/15/10 12:32 PM
Those are really good, your mother has a lot of talent. I suck at painting people, so I really admire those who can.drinker

Ruth34611's photo
Fri 01/15/10 12:44 PM
Hey, thanks for checking them out! flowerforyou Some of them are a little disturbing, but I think she does an excellent job of examining the reality of women's lives. :smile:

no photo
Fri 01/15/10 01:00 PM
Very nicely done, I'm impressed.:thumbsup:

no photo
Fri 01/15/10 01:05 PM
They're good, even the disturbing ones. We had a debate once in art history class whether the subject matter of a painting took away from its beauty. Most people said it did, but I disagree. I think any image can beautiful if it's beautifully painted.

ArtGurl's photo
Fri 01/15/10 09:40 PM
The purpose of art is not necessarily to be beautiful ... it is to make us question, to think, to feel ... and as Calleigh alluded to, there is inherent beauty to be found in the shadows too.

Thanks for sharing your mom's work Ruth :thumbsup:

Totage's photo
Fri 01/15/10 10:04 PM
Now That's art! I agree, she's very talented.

Jtevans's photo
Sat 01/16/10 03:14 AM
needs more cleavage flowerforyou

Ruth34611's photo
Sat 01/16/10 07:23 AM

needs more cleavage flowerforyou

noway laugh laugh laugh

That's what I love about you, JT. You're consistent. :tongue: flowerforyou

Ruth34611's photo
Sat 01/16/10 07:28 AM
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I agree, she is very talented. As an adult I am beginning to appreciate her art and her as a person more. It's interesting to get to know her as an individual and not just as my "mom".

no photo
Sat 01/16/10 12:23 PM
I was telling my mom something similar the other day; when I was a kid I didn't really see her as a person, she was just mom, like a superhero or something. But now that I'm an adult, I know she has thoughts and dreams, just like me. Sounds odd, but I wonder how many kids feel that way....

Ruth34611's photo
Sat 01/16/10 02:43 PM
I think all kids do this and it takes a very long time to view our parent as a person. I used to begrudge my mother her art because I felt like it was more important to her than my sisters and I were. Now I see that it was not more important. It was just necessary for her to function. It was an outlet for her and part of who she was. She needed to do it in order to do anything else.

Totage's photo
Sat 01/16/10 05:15 PM
Yeah, we all need a POSITIVE outlet. Some are blessed with having more than one, but if we could all find atleast one, I think we would all be better people, and the world would be a much better place.

RainbowTrout's photo
Sat 01/16/10 07:20 PM
She is quite talented.

no photo
Sat 04/10/10 02:41 AM
does any one know how to get blood stains out?
I can ride horses in my dreams :D :D :D just joking but seriously! I made sexyt time with your mother