DINORA JUSTICE, MFA 14
Portrait 6, after Delacroix's Reclining Odalisque.

38 h x 52 w x 1.5 l

DESCRIPTION: oil painting and acrylic hand-marbling on canvas

ARTIST STATEMENT: The linguistic tradition of the expression Mother Nature feminizes the environment, and gives our patriarchal system permission to extend its logic of subjugation and exploitation to nature, with the disastrous results that are pushing us to the brink of climate catastrophe. In this project I work with iconic female figures of the Western canon by painters such as Delacroix, Titian, Ingres and Matisse, from a period in their careers in which they explored a fascination with the exotic Middle East through paintings of odalisques, who were quasi-slave women kept in seclusion. In my paintings I substitute trees, plants and flowers for drapery and furniture, forcing a visual relocation of the female form from the realm of the intimate to that of the universal.

Courtesy of Gallery NAGA, Boston