Judy Chicago "In 1970, Chicago decided to teach full-time at Fresno State College,
hoping to teach women the skills needed to express the female perspective in their work. At
Fresno, she planned a class that would consist only of women, and she decided to teach off
campus to escape "the presence and hence, the expectations of men." She taught the first
women's art class in the fall of 1970 at Fresno State College. It became the Feminist Art
Program, a full 15-unit program, in the Spring of 1971. This was the first feminist art
program in the United States. Fifteen students studied under Chicago at Fresno State College:
Dori Atlantis, Susan Boud, Gail Escola, Vanalyne Green, Suzanne Lacy, Cay Lang, Karen LeCocq,
Jan Lester, Chris Rush, Judy Schaefer, Henrietta Sparkman, Faith Wilding, Shawnee Wollenman,
Nancy Youdelman, and Cheryl Zurilgen. Together, as the Feminist Art Program, these women rented
and refurbished an off-campus studio at 1275 Maple Avenue in downtown Fresno. Here they
collaborated on art, held reading groups, and discussion groups about their life experiences
which then influenced their art. Later, Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro reestablished the
Feminist Art Program at California Institute of the Arts. After Chicago left for Cal Arts,
the class at Fresno State College was continued by Rita Yokoi from 1971 to 1973, and then
by Joyce Aiken in 1973, until her retirement in 1992."
Tomma Abts "Tomma Abts is a German abstract painter born in Kiel 1967 and living and working in London,
England, where she is represented by the greengrassi gallery. Abts works in acrylic and oil,
often building up her designs from repetitive geometrical elements.The titles of her paintings
are derived from a dictionary of German first names. Tomma Abts also claims that all of her
work pieces measure 48 cm × 38 cm (19 inches by 15 inches). She claims that this is the size
and style that works for her.
Officially none of Tomma Abts paintings are representational. There are no references to nature,
the world or any other theme. The abstraction in Tomma Abts paintings is supported by the lack of
detail and an overall retro feel. The paintings do not follow the traditional rules of abstract art
though. They involve complex shapes that are layered and woven in different ways with added highlights,
shadows and sense of depth."
Mona Hatoum
"Mona Hatoum’s works explore themes of home and displacement through the perspective of the
Palestinian exile, using common domestic objects that often, on closer inspection, reveal menacing
qualities. Hatoum’s collection of sculptures and installations incorporates motifs of containment and
violence, from steel cages and sandbag walls to barbed wire and grenades. Mobile Home (2005),
an installation arranged between two steel barriers, features nondescript pieces of furniture
and household items framed above and below by a pulley system. Complete with clothespins,
the wires are strung between the tops of the barriers and along the floor and traverse the
space, carrying such unexpected objects as a toy and a tiny birdcage. The result is an
evocation of home that is both comforting and untenable, suggesting transience and vulnerability."
British-Palestinian, b. 1952, Beirut, Lebanon, based in London, United Kingdom
Kara walker
Kara Walker was born in Stockton, California, in 1969. She received a BFA from the Atlanta College
of Art in 1991, and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. The artist is best known
for exploring the raw intersection of race, gender, and sexuality through her iconic, silhouetted
figures. Walker unleashes the traditionally proper Victorian medium of the silhouette directly onto
the walls of the gallery, creating a theatrical space in which her unruly cut-paper characters
fornicate and inflict violence on one another. In works like "Darkytown Rebellion" (2000), the artist
uses overhead projectors to throw colored light onto the ceiling, walls, and floor of the exhibition
space; the lights cast a shadow of the viewer’s body onto the walls, where it mingles with Walker’s
black-paper figures and landscapes. With one foot in the historical realism of slavery and the other
in the fantastical space of the romance novel, Walker’s nightmarish fictions simultaneously seduce
and implicate the audience. Walker’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York;
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York. A 1997 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, Walker was the United States
representative to the 2002 Bienal de São Paulo. Walker currently lives in New York, where she
is on the faculty of the MFA program at Columbia University.
