New exhibition brings female artists to the fore

A VISUAL feast is being served up at the Bendigo Art Gallery, with the latest exhibition bringing together the multidisciplinary works of sixteen female artists from across Australia and abroad.

SOUL fury explores the complex and diverse lived experiences of women throughout the world through paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, installations, and textiles.

Bendigo Art Gallery curator Clare Needham worked in collaboration with guest curator Nur Shkembi for over two years to source some 40 works on display from artists’ studios and other private and public collections.

“It really is about not flattening that experience into one homogenised thing, it’s actually about making it complex because there is complexity in the world and we are all different beings and experiencing the world in different ways,” Ms Needham said.

“It’s all about bringing new, diverse, personal perspectives to the fore and having that all layered together in an exhibition is a really inspiring and engaging experience.

“There’s a lot of hope in the exhibition too though. A lot of the artists are creating a space for thinking about a new future or a different way of being, pushing out from some of the more restrictive, dominant histories or ways of working.

“That’s where the feminist philosophy comes in of thinking about ideas of care and connectedness and the female voice being present in the world.”

Included in the exhibition is Lebanese-Australian artist Shireen Taweel’s installation titled tracing transcendence.

It features three hand shaped copper rings, the largest of which was created specifically for the exhibition and reflects on the history of Muslims in Australia and looks towards the future of sacred spaces like mosques.

Ms Shkembi said other themes explored as part of SOUL fury include colonisation, politics, Islamophobia and refugee rights.

“The exhibition draws on the interconnectedness of global contemporary art and the female lived experience to offer insight into the dynamism, beauty, vulnerability and utterance of feminist power,” she said.

“Each of the artists presented in SOUL fury has a diverse background, but are united by the force and eloquence of their creative voice and their ability to reframe conventional approaches to established visual and symbolic languages to speak to contemporary concerns.”

SOUL fury is a free exhibition, on show until 24 October.