There is a quote by artist and professor Joan Semmel that says, ‘…if there are no great celebrated women artists, that’s because the powers have not been celebrating them, but not because they are not there.’ Celebrating women artists is more than just about amplifying the voice of the artists themselves, but also about reorienting the way a culture, a community, or a society is perceived and interpreted. The neglect and dismissal of the “woman’s perspective” has been persistent over history, and women’s views or forms of expressions were always regarded as personal rather than political, as domestic rather than public, and as quiet rather than loud. Yet the political, the loud, and the public expressions break the cycles of oppression and injustices in any society. The power of art is that it can be anarchistic – it disregards rules, power and authority and allows the artist to bring to light the issues and taboos that are usually deeply hidden behind the layers of oppressive systems. Born to a Kuwaiti father and a Syrian mother, mixed-media interdisciplinary artist Shurooq Amin’s 2012 series “It’s a Man’s World” is still relevant to…
It’s A Man’s World: Exploring the Double Lives of Arab Men Through Art
November 25, 2021
