I tend to argue when confronted with the question Why Women Art? Art has no sex. There is no Male art as such. Therefore, why be gendered? My answer is that it is, in fact, absolutely necessary to be specific. Women in art have experienced exclusion from the major movements through centuries of definition by historians, and insurmountable barriers riddled by the conventions of art practice. Few women have been able to circumvent the conventionally understood canons of art to claim their own space or bequeath their skills and aesthetic knowledge to future generations. They are understood only in meanings related to male paradigms of art and femininity.
A significant trend therefore, in the last two decades, is the shift towards new emerging women artists worldwide. Women who have secured a position despite sexual and cultural differences by addressing those very extensions of male dominance, and by opening the windows to their own bodies in order to understand the politics of gender differences.
The need to exhibit, discuss, critique and regularly create interventions by women artists becomes essential not only in exploring and understanding ourselves, but in being understood. Where then to begin but at the site of the discourse: The womans body.
In Mapping the Body, we have here this year, women artists from Asia, nailing their own narratives. It is not in-your-face feminism at work, but rather, an inclusive force that invites the viewer to come and explore the filigree of thought, emotion and imagination that the artists have experienced. From sexuality to notions of beauty, to art, culture and body as commodity, gender bending and the body in flux, these are testimonies of creativity that raise questions and provide answers if you wish to unearth them.