Sophia Slaney-Marsch

Sophia Slaney-Marsch

For my year 12 artworks I analysed the theme of femininity and how women are viewed by society.

My first artwork is a dress of hundreds of fabric flowers that slowly age as they descend. Literature and art constantly compares women to flowers, for their beauty, delicacy and fragility - my work analyses the way older women are treated by society. As soon as the woman ages and lacks youthful attraction, she loses her value and is discarded, just like a flower.

My second artwork is inspired by Hannah Gadsby’s comedy special ‘Nannette’, in which she contends “The history of western art is just the history of men painting women like they are flesh vases for their dick flowers”.

The collage uses paintings and words found in artbooks to critique the appreciative, yet grotesque images of women painted through the perspective of the male gaze. The concertina book form plays with the viewers perspective, as the book can be folded this-way and that and turned inside out to change the meaning of the work.