Modern Artist Female
Sexuality and Identity

Kofi Fosu Forson

Originally, Georgia Okeefe/Alfred Stieglitz, Diego Riviera/Frida Kahlo, David Salle/ Karol Armitage, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, were couples involved in what one would cordially say defined the modern day soap opera between artist/couples.

Among Hollywood actors they’ve been given names like Brangelina and Beniffer. The modern day artist female was always identified as an eccentric, inspired by lead characters in movies like Annie Hall to actual professional artists such as Cindy Sherman and Vanessa Beecroft.

Modern day artist as female isn’t given attention reminiscent of a cover model. Her self-care and attributes however pertinent to beauty, as in the interventions by Beecroft, isn’t held in the esteem of a television actress. She is in a sense not looked at as a sexual icon. The very art she presents is reflective not of her body, perhaps inspired by the body.

Liverpool performance artist, Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney, does everything to dismiss the knowledge of the female artist’s body as transitory. Her physical body, taut and svelte, reflects a language made evident. However intuitive and graphic, it portrays a vision of damage, beauty and philosophy, circumscribed as a postmodernist inclusion within scientific, semiotic and neological relevancies.

Sexuality and identity in modern sense refers to pleasuring of the ego. Most of this is achieved through misuse of power, whether financial or sexual. Masculine and feminine represent ideals that are similar to both sexes.

Understandably, control is of the self. Women have incorporated it into their sexuality and identity. They see themselves as warranting a share of the masculine ideal. In doing so, women now present a dominant approach or a type of self-assertion.

The modern artist female can finally remove herself from the role of a person. She can therefore be female, sexual and present herself as identifiably commercial within the challenge of lovers and libido.

It’s always been this way. At the moment, for the woman, the job title of artist is no longer a curse.