Here is a link to an article about my current (Jan 2024) show at Curtis Memorial Library. I feel so fortunate to have the women inhabiting the space.
Artist’s Statement:
Each of these women was inspired by a detail. The look in someone’s eye, a certain curtain of hair, maybe a nose.
Most of these women are utter fiction. Some are based on real people (maybe you?). Sometimes, they are from memory. If I see a photo that inspires me, I look at it for a while, then do the drawing without looking at it. When I paint them (so quickly, in India Ink) the women come alive for me. I feel I know them;
I say “Aha, it’s YOU!”
When I was a child, I used to think that we were all the same person. I was the ME version, and you the YOU. This project brings me back to that feeling.
I hope these women will inspire you to ask them questions.
Which one has a secret? Which one is your fourth cousin? Who is angry? Who is tired? Who is full of joy? Talk to them. They may answer.
If you are so moved, please tell me what they told you, in the Guest Book. You can identify the women by section, or keep them anonymous (or give them a name!). There are no wrong answers. Just conversation.
I’m not sure why I did a project based on humans who identify as women. I am so glad that we now recognize that humans may identify in so many ways, along a spectrum as beautiful as the one we might dream up for flowers, for example, or stars.
Here’s to all our communality and to what makes each of us unique.
Charlotte Agell January 2024