Inspired by Guerrilla Girls
Dearest Art Collector,
I asked your male artist to paint me like I am-
far more than just flesh.
For my character runs deeper than the hollow collar bones he shades
and my thoughts grow bolder than the plump lips he reddens.
I asked your male artist to paint me
outside of the boundaries of beauty his white forefathers set. Boundaries
he adamantly accepts
and yet refers to himself as an ‘artist’. I’ve watched him squeeze tubes of white
to dilute my brown on his palette. He prefers to paint me a tender rose,
pretending that I am his la demoiselle- pink, virginal and ‘prime’ at just 17.
Or perhaps he’s just afraid of angering the “aahing” gentry
that resonates with skin of its own shade.
I asked your male artist to paint me
if he must insist, but with justice. Paint me as I am.
Without the pseudointellectual excuse of art movements that mandate
voluptuous-exaggeration and
thinning-minimalization.
For he refuses to acknowledge my loving relationship with my body,
his comprehension of it being only skin-deep,
painting me like a piece of meat
to be devoured through stares and the patriarchy you live off of
allowing you to sell me,
display me and
dispose me
as simply a piece of meat. Artistic.
I asked your male artist to paint me
by first stepping into my shoes to morph his art
from tunnel vision
to experiential.
For if he is to paint my tit then paint my thought too as I lay bare- all of me.
For my moment of empowerment is not your moment to objectify
but to learn.
For the shape of my body is not the shape of my being.
For he, you, and the gentry will unabashedly gaze at my suppleness but never into my soul.
I asked your male artist to paint me
brown, disproportionate and honest
or he’d be failing himself and his art,
for conforming to a definition of beauty
is disservice to Art itself.
And I ask you now dear art collector, with all your power and strength
why you choose to pelt our bodies
over our hearts and minds.
I advise you, dear art collector,
for there is indeed an easier way-
We also paint our bodies,
invoked by our sense of self.
We are the greater artists
of ourselves (and other things).
For we dive far deeper into our art
than the white man’s bland rhetoric.
Trust me, you will be collecting the complete picture.
All my love,
Sharmee Shah - a female of colour
*Male [Artist's] Gaze = The act [art] of depicting women from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer [consumer].
Nakedness isn’t problematic. The imbalance of power behind a piece of art that revolves around male primacy is problematic. The depiction of naked women by (primarily white) males to cater to the white male gaze is problematic. Their depiction of a naked women oscillating between the twin poles of a femme fatale or a passive decorative ornament is problematic. And the consumers lauding the creator as a genius and the authority on the depiction of females and their beauty is problematic. #fury
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