Stark Illustration (From Oxford Mail)

Stark Illustration

11:34am Thursday 25th February 2010 in

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A new exhibition of 100 female portraits carries a harrowing statistical reminder, writes Jeremy Smith.

Some of art history’s most famous portraits of women are painted almost exclusively, by men.

Susan Moxley’s thought-provoking exhibition, showing at The North Wall Arts Centre, brings a fresh approach to portraiture, from an entirely female view point.

“It is not my intention to follow a feminist tradition,” she says of her work, “rather to paint women, both specific and general from a female perspective.

“The portraits are of women who live or work in Oxford or are connected to me in some way – each has an individual story. The success of the portrait lies in the quality of the paint, the resemblance to the sitter, but most importantly to reveal something of the sitter’s ‘soul’ essence, or character.”

Susan’s new work – portraits that hang side by side forming one huge painting of 100 women – is asking the viewer to look past the group and seek the individual, with her own space and story, to search beyond the skin and flesh tone (indeed, the portraits are painted in black and white) and seek out her subjects’ identity, experiences, and relationships and how these unseen elements inform a portrait.

Half-way through preparing for this exhibition, Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer. Compelled to incorporate this major, life-changing experience into an entirely new body of work, she began a series of bold, graphic, unemotional yet sensual prints, which hang alongside the portraits, telling her own story.

She also came to a harrowing realisation about her 100 sitters, with the portraits themselves being a stark illustration of the facts; statistically, 10 of them will experience breast cancer, she said.

Originally from South Africa, Susan Moxley is now based in Oxford, and has been exhibiting in this city, London and beyond for the past 10 years.

A versatile artist working in a variety of media, she has also had her work published on book covers, magazines and in children’s books, and has completed major public projects, notably a commemorative stained glass window for Humphrey Carpenter as well as for Reading University Museum of English Rural Life, and for SS Philip and James Primary School.

Susan Moxley: The Female Form – Celebrating Women The North Wall Arts Centre, South Parade, Oxford, 01865 319450 Until Friday March 13