Elizabeth Malaska’s work is concerned with the ubiquitous and normalized use of the often-naked female form throughout art history, a body that frequently has been depicted as an object on display. Through a variety of tactics, her paintings aim to recontextualize these bodies, give the figures greater agency, and challenge viewers to question their own power and position.
In this Artist Talk, Malaska discusses William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Nature’s Fan – Girl With Child” (1881) and why, after revisiting the piece, it didn’t affect her in the same way. For this reason, she also discusses Morris Graves’ “Memorial Day Wildflower Bouquet in the Cemetery of an Abandoned Western Mining Town” (1936) [2001.45.1].
http://www.portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=4434;type=101
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