Sarah Jayne Portelli

Suspended women, an artist's burden. An insight into the feminist art of Stephanie Leigh “The women I met at art school, that is where I learnt everything about feminism and myself.” Running my production company Nexus Production Group from Studio 106 in St Kilda means that each day I bump into the artists who also rent spaces within the building. I had crossed paths with new tenant Stephanie a couple of times in the hall and we smiled or said hello to on another. However it was not until her latest exhibition, Suspended Women – A Weighty Burden was brought to my attention via a group email that I realised Stephanie and I had plenty to talk about. Last week I finally arrived at the Mars Gallery in Windsor to support Stephanie's exhibition and was lucky enough to catch the end of her talk and chat with her afterwards. Stephanie elaborated on the female form in her work, how it was inspired by art history and the representation of women in art over the centuries. This exhibition and what it stood for stayed with me for days. When I had the chance to sit down with Stephanie over coffee I learnt that she is very passionate about the subject of women's representation in art and takes a very feminist approach to creating her work. Unlike myself, a newbie to feminism and mostly self taught through reading a lot on the subject, Stephanie told me that her feminist views grew through art school. “I kept constantly engaged in interesting discussion, everything was thought provoking and the people that I met were epic. The women I met at art school, that is where I learnt everything about feminism and myself.” Stephanie is aware of the separation there was between a woman’s historical place in society and the way these nudes were painted at a time when men were painting them. “The male gaze is super problematic today,” she told me. “I think it really has a historical lineage in what would have been a niche practice, which is painting female nudes. That is why I find life drawing a really interesting space.” At the time of our meeting, I had just written my article about similar themes and life modelling being an old art form that shows women's bodies as classical, goddess-like and natural as well as my experience as a life model. I understood where Stephanie’s work and motivation steamed from and why it is important that she created Suspended Women – A Weighty Burden for a modern audience. The suspended women are four separate shapes, each forming the female body in various poses similar to what is seen in classic art paintings such as during the Renaissance periods. One seems to be on her knees, while another looks like she is reclining, yet all are headless and each is painted in a different shade of blue, with a marble effect painted on the back. All pieces are hung from the ceiling at varied heights giving the work, in unison, a landscape painting feel. I asked Stephanie to go deeper into what her inspiration for the artwork was. “The whole kind of genre of painting the female nude for hundreds and hundreds of years starting from the representation of Venus, up until the eighteenth century, even the twentieth century and late nineteenth century when females started painting themselves. We know women didn't represent their sexuality first, but the age of reclaiming I am interested in that and in the problems. It is not so black and white. I focus on painting history and the old practice of men representing women.” Look back at Stephanie's previous work before Suspended Women and you will see that she has always shown an interest in the female form, its place in history compared to modern society and taken a feminist point of view. Her next exhibition titled BOOB, standing for Bias Objects Objective Bodies is true to form, yet the focus is on consent and the artwork, tentatively titled Consent, will be exhibited at KINGS Artist-Run Initiative throughout Melbourne Fringe Festival. Again, this will be a series of around five large pieces and Stephane is hoping to create a void between the artwork and the space using colour contrast, as well as making this piece interactive. “They are boobs but they are not boobs just like the (suspended) women are women but they are not women”, she told me, smiling as she explained. I totally understood. The interactive part comes to play with a glove that is provided for the audience to wear so they can touch the boob. “The idea of touching breasts is not ok, but in my work I allow you to touch them, but they are not actually breasts”, Stephanie continued to tell me. After all the excitement of Melbourne Fringe is over, Stephanie's next artistic adventure will see her travelling to NSW for a Nancy Fairfax artist residency at Tweed Regional Gallery Margaret Ollie Arts Centre, where Stephanie will reside for a month. When I asked her what idea she pitched on the application she told me she proposed to make an artwork all about her breasts. In her words the idea behind this was, “if men for so many years have been dictating female sexuality, if that is kind of my motif in art, then I should really take some time to represent myself in whatever that means. So I will do my own life drawing in front of a mirror by myself everyday of myself.” Stephanie has been an art student since 2009 and her impressive CV shows as a young artist she has been rightfully blessed with the recognition her artwork deserves. Stephanie's most recent award, Best Visual Arts at the 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival, is proof that she has no plans for keeping this new wave of feminist art she is creating on a small scale. Stephanie's art is progressive, thought-provoking and what it represents lingers in your mind long after the image in your memory has faded. It makes one think of the way audiences see women through art, and how women represent women through art. Stephanie is the modern feminist female artist Melbourne needs today. Proofread and edited in 2023, by myself. First published with my other articles on Huff Post contributor page 2016: https://www.huffpost.com/author/sarah-443