The model; The Artist and The Model, 2022

Oil on canvas

1m x 1.5m

I remember the first time I modelled at a life drawing group. I’d recently got out of an abusive relationship and wanted to gain some empowerment, to take back some control in my life. I’d been to life drawing for years and was curious what it would be like from the other side of the easel. It was a group of artists I regularly drew alongside and felt comfortable and safe but also nervous. As I sat on the floor with my legs folded, I had two hours to sit still. I could hear comments about making the work. The artists were concentrating on their version of me rather than me as a naked girl in front of them. It did indeed feel empowering to help fellow artists in learning the techniques of life drawing. But this hasn’t always been the story for life models. Traditionally the subject for male artists like fresh meat on a butcher’s worktop, the women were of low society and often objects for men to play with. ‘If anyone has a right to depict herself it’s the model: those nameless women whose faces and bodies have sold countless paintings over the centuries, and whose lives we very rarely know anything about’ (Higgie, 2021).

With the traditional view of a woman being an object for a male artist, I wanted to think about how the model feels and my relationship with playing both artist and model. I wanted to depict the moment after the model has posed and has her dressing gown back on and is massaging her feet which have pins and needles from holding a position. The unfinished ghostly images in the background are of poses she has held and are a memory of a day’s work. The unfinished quality gives a feeling of connection to me as the artist drawing from life. I also took inspiration from Jenny Saville. A body of work she made has repeated figures is outlined around and through a centre figure suggesting a sense of movement and the idea of capturing a moment. I believe this is the power of painting, to capture a moment and give it life beyond that single time frame.

Clothed or unclothed, the aesthetic of women has dominated art history since antiquities and has barely been challenged since the first feminist text from Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792 and leading to the women’s movements during the 20th century. Whether its portraiture, the nude or history paintings of goddesses, damsels being harassed or raped, or the first woman who has been blamed for all the evil in the world, according to Christianity and a number of other religions. In a patriarchal society it has always been about how men view women, how women should behave, their role in society from maidens to mothers and the fallen women and witches. My work is an attempt to take back some of that control.

Ref: The Mirror and the Palette Jennifer Higgie, 2021