Rowen Dinsmore
WHAT GAVE YOU THAT IMPRESSION (?)
Still today, after all the work towards women’s rights, there is more work to be made. Women that have rose up and made their way to powerful positions are first judged by their appearance before their words and actions. Women are continually being objectified in every aspect of their lives and critically examined for their appearance. Society’s beauty and fashion industry uses women’s bodies to sell product by promoting unreal beauty standards that are unobtainable and often photoshopped or unhealthy. What is the message we are sending to our young women? That their bodies are a product to be consumed? That their looks are to be inspected by the public at every turn?
This is not new. This presentation of women’s bodies has a deep history in the art canon. Depictions of women were often for the male gaze. These paintings were of women for male consumption, their looks and bodies a product representing beauty, purity, and desire. The artworks themselves serving as a piece of ownership of these women.
Rowen Dinsmore’s “what gave you that impression (?)” is a series of works that depict women’s bodies, in this case the artist herself, in unconventional ways. Her exhibition is a white gallery space with gemstone paintings of various sizes adorning the walls. They are tightly cropped oil paintings of women’s bodies in often curious compositions painted using brightly coloured monochromes. At first glance I think these could be slick magazine advertisement images and they draw you in. But looking longer, you will soon feel that these paintings do not intend to seek beauty. There is something unsettling about each one: wounds, blurred areas and double exposures, oddities, and signs of force on women’s skin. This conflict between acceptable presentation of women as beauty objects and perverse details affects the viewer as they searching for narrative and meaning.
Rowen takes it a step further with the titles that she pairs each painting with. The titles of her work are deeply biographical as she recalls phrases of her upbringing that left lasting mental impressions on her; nicknames, off-hand comments, statements about herself from authority figures etc. She then assigned these phrases to the paintings after they were completed. This becomes another layer of thought as the viewer extends their analysis and interpretation.
The process of creating these paintings is worth exploring. Rowen’s process is intentional as she constructs photoshoots that include herself and often objects that contain rich symbolism. With these photographs Rowen will manipulate the images: cropping them dramatically, distorting colours and putting on otherworldly filters, or layering images overtop of each other to slightly warp reality of what is depicted. Rowen then uses these modified self portraits as her reference image for her paintings.
Rowen’s Dinsmore’s exhibition “what gave you that impression (?)” is a beautiful exhibition that draws you in and has you analyze the very nature of beauty, and the relationship of self. If our notion of beauty is a societal construct then it disrupts our ingrained perceptions. Subtle details in these paintings present the viewer with a conflict that they seek to resolve through exploration. The biographical titles bring further grounds of thought and analysis. Rowen’s work is about growing up into womanhood; society’s objectification, the consumption, and the portrayal of women’s bodies; and challenging beauty. These are paintings that are intriguing stories of the artist’s life that are in conversation with art history, consumerism and pop culture. They fly in the face of today’s social media sickness: a warped performance of selfie culture sent out to the masses for a quick dopamine rush of likes and comments. They are intentionally and laboriously created to bring the viewer in and to slow down for analysis and exploration.
This artist project and writing associated with it was funded with the generous support of a curating grant from SK Arts
