A Legacy of Defiance - Sandra Douglas

Modern women walk in the footsteps of those who fought for their rights. This is the legacy that we benefit from, that we have a responsibility to uphold and to continue to fight for. Now, more than ever in this uncertain world, the importance of this fight is clear.

Two of these portraits are of women from NZ history.  ‘Contentment’ is a portrait of Harriet Sexton – one of the earliest Feilding settlers. Her life was unimaginable to women of today and yet she raised her children, helped her husband create their home and embraced the life that she had with grace and humility. ‘Independence’ is a portrait of an unknown Otago woman whose photo sits, unclaimed and un-named, in a museum archive. There seems to me to be a wildness and desire for freedom in her eyes. I hope she found it.

In this exhibition, I have paired images of women with fabric or wallpaper backgrounds. These materials were designed for women to either wear or use in their homes and so they represent what women are expected to ‘be’, rather than encompassing the full spectrum of what it is to be a woman in today’s world. Modern women demonstrate the choices that they make through their lifestyles – makeup, tattoos, piercings, hairstyles, attitudes, sexual behaviour and orientation. Pairing the expectation of ‘womanhood’ with the reality, through detailed charcoal or acrylic portraits, continues to  fascinate me – it is an examination of the outcomes of defiance.

Each artwork title is best read preceded by ‘She is entitled to…’

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