This group exhibition explores how artists have conjured, revered and reimagined the goddess figure. Drawing from the works in The Women’s Art Collection as well as loans from public and private collections, the exhibition explores the enduring appeal of the goddess and traces how artists have adapted and even transformed the goddess into an ambiguous figure undefined by gender or even bodily form.
Dating from the 1970s to the present day, the curated works include the voices of contemporary artists who present alternative versions of the goddess figure, including non-Western perspectives and ones that complicate accepted notions of the body.
Goddess feminism originated in America in the 1970s. Two of its pioneers are represented in this exhibition. American artist Mary Beth Edelson engaged with the figure of the prehistoric Goddess through photomontages and performances, during which the artist summoned an ancient goddess lost to historical record. Climate activist and eco-feminist Monica Sjöö was a leading member of the goddess movement in the UK. Her painting Earth is Our Mother (1984) includes the symbol of the goddess to suggest the connectedness between women’s cycle of menstruation, birth and menopause and the life and death cycles of the universe.
Contemporary artists represented within the exhibition search for a figure undefined by gender or bodily form.
