The Missing Women Series

Spaceworks Tacoma presents The Missing Women Series, featuring over 30 paintings by Lynette Charters at the 950 Gallery.

The Missing Women Series

Exhibit Duration
Sep 5 – Oct 17, 2019

Artist Reception
Sep 19, 5 – 9PM

Informal Chat with the Artist
Saturday Oct 5, 3 – 5PM

Closing Reception
Oct 17, 5 – 9PM
With a performance at 7pm by John Serembe as Hanson Duane The Docent

Spaceworks Tacoma presents The Missing Women Series, featuring over 30 paintings by Lynette Charters at the 950 Gallery.

The Missing Women Series shows how women are presented but not represented in society and history. Using public galleries as a framework, the woman’s body is omitted from renderings of famous paintings to highlight, the lack of documented female genius in recorded history, proportional female representation in politics, lack of societal appreciation in terms of wage equality and other disparities.

5cf8130ddf6b32a7d463b88f_Ambrogio_de_Predis_L

5cf8131c00c7e798220cbe70_Shinsui's New Cotton Muse

5cf81316ef558ef4ebbd3889_Gauguin's Muse holding a Fruit

5cf81319c31694420aa6a5e3_Picasso's Seated Bather Muse

Our verbal and visual communication systems represent a predominantly white, heterosexual male, perspective. This creates huge problems in communication for anyone else. For women the most obvious difficulty is portraying their body image without it seemingly on display for male appreciation. Women do not own the images of their bodies, which are seen everywhere, but their accomplishments are invisible. The Missing Women Series is an assertive, non-aggressive but unwavering attempt to point out the communication difficulties women face on a daily basis.

Materials are pertinent. Shiny packaging reflects how women are dressed up and gifted, or gifted things, instead of being paid fair wages. Bare wood offers up a natural beauty not unrealistically unblemished or beautified. They stare back at us, observing us, inviting us to see their experience of reality. Our minds may perceive sexuality as we study these images, but we must question if it is appropriate to project our notions onto a piece of wood.

5cf8131bef558e6088bd38a7_Sanchuan's Goddess Patches Sky Muse

5cf81320c31694ff0da6a5ed_Manet's-Olympia-Muses

5cf8130def558ec3a4bd385b_Apperleys_Aisha_L

5cf8131f88aeb1ecaef9cd22_Wyeth'sSaunaMuse

Artist’s Bio
Charters was born in The Yorkshire Dales in The North of England. She paints from her home in Olympia, Washington. She holds a BA (hons) degree from Cardiff, South Wales and an MFA from Chelsea College of Art in London. While she was a student, she worked with the sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. During her time spent working with Goldsworthy, she learned how to draw one’s attention in an image, and to appreciate the beauty of natural materials. As a student in the 80s Lynette studied various aspects of art history and feminism, studying under Graham Crowley at Cardiff and Amanda Faulkner at Chelsea, researching imagery and language of materials in art. While tackling issues of feminism It occurred to her how extremely difficult it is to represent the female form from the female perspective. This problem is apparent in everyday life and has never been far from her mind. After a foray into the animation business, traveling internationally and honing her artistic skills; she returned to fine art, her first passion.

The combination of these life experiences along with Charters’ concerns for the world her daughters are learning to negotiate led to her current body of work. “The Missing Women Series.”

See more of Lynette’s work at www.lcharters.com

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