Dominating In The Male Dominated World Of Art, The Landscape Is Changing
The art world likens to a good amount of other industries in the fact that for the majority of history and present-day, men have been running it. Not a huge surprise but when women earn “70% of bachelor of fine arts and 65–75% of master of fine arts degrees in the U.S., though only 46% of working artists (across all arts disciplines) are women” one can’t help but realize we need something to change.
The good news is that we see a shift in some aspects of the real world and the art world. Ah, there is hope!
A few weeks ago, I and So She Slays, Director of Partnerships, Dani, got to attend the opening of Arushi’s gallery. A young woman has three art galleries worldwide, one in London, India, and now right here in LA. It was the opening of her new gallery and one of her talented clients, Lindsay Dawn’s art show, Lawless Reflections. Lindsay is an incredibly talented portrait painter, and if you check her Instagram page, you’ll see that the goat LeBron James has her work up on display. Though traditional portraits were not a part of this show, one could say these paintings were more portraits and expressions of Lindsay herself.
Women like these two are working to change the tides in the art world with their talents and their stance on making space for everyone in art, especially women. After the show, I sat down with them and chatted about art, journeys, sexuality, and domination in a male-dominated industry.
Lindsay, how would you describe your style of art?
I would describe my style as contemporary with aspects of figurative work and street art. Definitely, contemporary artists and some street artists like modern pop artists found in New York and Tracey Emin. Since I was in high school, I've been painting the female body; that was always just my thing. I don't know why. So then, when I got the chance to work on it and master how I want to express myself through the female body and the abstract aspects of my work and the street art aspects of my work, it's been exciting and challenging.
Have you both always known this is what you wanted to do? What was the journey like here?
Arushi: Eight to ten years ago, I started working with Sotheby’s, and I was 16 years old working as an intern. Then I was writing books when I was like 17 or 18 years old. It’s been almost 10 years since I've been working in the art world. I’ve done everything from sweeping floors to working as an Andy Warhol specialist, getting to see the difference between a real Warhol and a fake, to cataloging pieces. I mean, every single experience and work experience has got me to where I am today, and I started my first company, which was the tech aspect of our SOP. Back when I was a USC, that failed, but it gave me many contacts and information to many galleries, which helped me build the whole secondary market. I had enough influence to start and deal with primary market artists and put them in the right places, so they could go on to be successful.
Lindsay: There wasn’t one driving force towards my career path. Truthfully, I can’t see myself having done anything other than being an artist; it was the only thing that ever made sense to me. I had it in my head because of society and stuff that you can’t make real money with art or in the arts, that it wasn’t a real career. So there was a time where I wanted to be a pharmacist or an architect, but I suck at math. I even thought I was gonna be a makeup artist, and then every time I tried to do something else, I was always led back to painting. For me, there are external factors like now as I get further along in my career, one of the biggest things is just using my voice in the way that I can. I feel like I owe it to many people, especially young artists and stuff, to follow your dreams; that's the biggest thing for me; it was not a choice. Whether or not I was going to do this, it was just how I would do it. I have failed a million times. But you know, as cliche as it is, fall seven times you stand up eight, and that's just what it comes down to, no matter what, you have to follow your dreams and authentically live as yourself.
Lindsay, what do you say to people who say your work is hyper-sexualized?
You know I think it’s funny because I get many people telling me my work is very sexual and from my point of view I don’t feel that way. I think because the way I look at the female body is not hyper-sexualized. I think looking at my work; people don’t know that I’m painting myself. I think my work being hypers sexualized is one way to interpret it, but I also add other aspects to my work, not just a female body. I have a curvy body, and I paint true to myself. People look at women nude and think hypersexual, but if you look at my work and take the sexual part out, you can step back and say, “wow, that’s beautiful.”
So I did a little research and according to Smithsonian magazine,
“An analysis of more than 40,000 works of art detailed in 18 major US museums online catalogs, found that 85% of artists featured are white in 87% are men.
that paints a clear picture of how male-dominated the art world is. what are your thoughts on this?
Arushi: The art world is 100% male-dominated, how do I feel about that? It’s stupidity. I thinking things are changing but not fast enough. You wouldn’t find a lot of females on acquisitions committees of museums, you would find female heads of museums. If you look around I guarantee 80% of the people who are curators that are running museums are male. I do think in the last year the trend has changed. At Arushi Gallery we are female-oriented not just because it’s a potential trend but because I think only males were given opportunities for so long it’s time to even the scales and give women opportunities as well. Create balance so it doesn’t matter if the artist is male or female and that it doesn’t affect the value of the artwork. Most artworks by female artists are not as extensive, if you go and see actions that are female artists who have done exceptionally well, their work can sell in the five million dollar range where artwork done by old white men can sell for 29 to 30 million only because they were given opportunities for so long.
Lindsay: I’m surprised by the number being 87% male, I thought it would have been higher. So based on my experience, especially since I’m new to this side of the art world I was intimidated by the things that I would read and heard about. Because it’s was like, well what are my chance of making it as a female artist? Especially when the world is primarily older white men that are looking at your work and judging it? That was why I’m so excited to work with Arushi because I would prefer to be represented by a young woman or a woman in general than by a man. I don’t have anything against them but I feel that my vision, my work, especially my work, is honoring the female body and the female form. It just makes sense. And like Arushi said it’s changing, it’s inevitable at this point.
This was just a little taste of our interview with Arushi and Lindsay, if you would like to hear more check out our podcast episode below! If you’re in LA and want to see Lindsay’s work in person you will find it at Arushi Gallery running through the end of September.
Be sure to follow Arushi and Lindsay on Instagram to stay up to date.