How One Artist's Pubic Hair and Stuffed Stockings are Redefining Feminist Art
I don't need to tell you that feminism has been a hot topic since the seventies. From Hilary Clinton's Presidential campaign to #freethenipple, your newsfeeds have been inundated with articles and news stories striving to reveal gender inequality. Whilst some choose to solve it with saccharine videos of men wearing woman's bathing suits and Disney Princesses with realistic waistlines, others go on SlutWalks or conspiciously read Simone De Beauvoir in coffee shops.
There exists a plethora of avenues to venture down in pursuit of the progression of feminism yet few seem as refreshing as the artwork of Sinead Dowdall. With saliva, pubic hair and oddly sexual stockings, the graduating Fine Art student is paving the way for feminist art. We are presented with everyday items positioned in non-explicit ways that somehow create a feeling of uneasyness; Dowdall asks you to keep your mind in the gutter.
The Jotter: Hey Sinead, tell us a little about yourself.
Sinead: I am currently finishing a BA Fine Art degree specializing in printmaking, I balance my work between a vast variety of mediums, working mainly with photography, sculpture and drawing. I sought to create work that allows the viewer to have an insight into my mind, my life experiences, and producing art that relates to me, whilst exciting me as an individual as well as an artist and spectator.
My interest in creating work focusing on the female body has been on-off since 2013 when I made a series of work throughout my first year. This work was influenced by the female genitals and grew into work around the destruction of the female body. I found this work challenging so early on in my degree and so I abandoned it, it wasn't until over a year later I realized what this work was essentially about.
"For many years of my life I let people do and say what they wanted me to, knowing it was wrong but telling myself that it wasn’t significant how I felt and that it all didn’t matter."
For many years of my life I let people do and say what they wanted me to, knowing it was wrong but telling myself that it wasn’t significant how I felt and that it all didn’t matter. This was why I found it therefore both interesting but daunting to discuss the female body under threat in my work. As a result I came to the conclusion early in semester one that I wasn’t truly finished with this topic. I needed to let go of the past and this was the perfect way to release my emotions whilst hopefully creating great art that relates to my experiences, allowing me to take back full control over my own body and embracing it.
"I want my viewers to say to themselves 'I am amazing, with my blood stained panties and hairy legs.'"
My inspiration and drive to create my work is to hopefully inspire someone else not to go and create art but to get up and move on, shit happens but we (women) are robust. I want my viewers to say to themselves “I am amazing, with my blood stained panties and hairy legs”.
TJ: The materials you use in your work are often unorthodox and quite shocking, what sort of reactions do you get from this?
SD: Normally people that see my work for the first time get a shock, but why there isn’t much there that you don’t have either on your body or in your homes. Of course I use the materials as I know the response I will get and I want them to stop people in their tracks to ask themselves why that is. During a group crit I did recently I let the viewers get up and close with my artworks and afterwards I filled them in with what each piece was.
"I found it amusing to watch their faces once I said they were touching my pubes that I had mixed with resin."
I found it amusing to watch their faces once I said they were touching my pubes that I had mixed with resin. I feel as though I have always been quite an anxious person, especially when discussing art but I somehow feel at ease when I identify that I have made everyone else present uncomfortable. Perhaps I like to be in control of somebody else’s emotions for a change.
TJ: As an artist about to graduate from school, how do you feel about your transition into the art world and what struggles does an emerging artist face?
SD: I feel excited but nervous, I can already feel the pressure to be successful in the art world and have my work known. I am still unsure of what is in store for me for the next couple of years, I hope to complete a PGCE in teaching art at secondary school level at some point but I will not stop creating art no matter what job I might fall into. Already I am observing what opportunities there are out there for an emerging artists like myself, and I understand that with such restricted time outside university work I have not been reaching out as much as I would of liked.
"I will soon be leaving an institution where I am greatly supported and it’s daunting knowing that I am a insignificant person within the world of art and without getting my work shown I will stay that way."
I think for a young artist it is vital to reach out and do as much commissions work as possible, creating blogs and webpages and applying to exhibit wherever possible. I will soon be leaving an institution where I am greatly supported and it’s daunting knowing that I am a insignificant person within the world of art and without getting my work shown I will stay that way.