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Feminist art is much Diversified. It grew in the late 1960's and early 1970's out of the contemporary woman's movement. One example of feminist art is that of Jenny Saville, who trained as a figurative painter in the 1980's. After she established herself, she dabbled into her second passion; photography, however always preferred painting. Saville represents bodies rarely appreciated in contemporary Western culture. She didn't paint any figure however, she focused her work on obease nude female which was usually done by males. Some of her artwrok focused on surgical marks of liposuction, trauma victims, and even transgender patients, which caused much controversy. In a discussion about her surgically marked up woman painting in the Hunter Davies interview she says, "I'm not painting discusting, big women. I'm painting women who have been made to think they're big and discusting; who imagine they're thighs go on forever... i have'nt had liposuction myself but i did fall for that body wrap thing where they promise four inches off or your money back." (Carson,F 'Feminist visual culture' p44-48) She paints her models on huge canvases commonly through distorted perspectives; this thrusts the figure into the viewer's eyes forgetting about sexual desire or notions of idealised femininity.

The way Saville picks her colours is also very in tune to the messages she is putting across. The bright reds and yellowy shades suggest injuries, physical injuries from the dominant male in the house but also it could be representing the emotional injuries the women of that time were being caused. There is no doubt that Jenny Saville is making a bold statement about the female body forcing the viewer to think about their own views and emotions about their own body. There was some controversy about the real reason why Jenny Saville made these paintings. The obvious and most common response was that she was trying to get people to believe large bodies were beautiful again, in contrast to the current western notions. Saville replied to these remarks with, "I don't make paintings for people to say we should look at big bodies again and say they are beautiful. I think that it's more that they are difficult. Why do we find bodies like this difficult to look at?"



Another largely feminist artist is Cindy Sherman. Sherman, instead of using paint to represent her feelings about patrarchy and sexism in society, she has opted for showing this via the lens of a camera. Through a number of different series of works, Cindy Sherman has raised challenging and important questions about the role od women in society and the media. Within her photographs she queries the very nature of representation. Does the photograph that we see give and insight into ourselves or is this just what we want others to believe? Are we creating an illusion for others to devour? She created a set of 69 black and white photos which she started in 1977. She stars herself in her photos; however they could not be classed as self portraits because self portraits portray you as a whole including your personality, whereas she dressed up using clothes and props to create different characters. Fashion is a big part of Sherman's work as she is representing the woman being able to be themselves and look the way they want. She has been quoted saying "I do get inspired by how things are made, by fashion as art form." (HTTP://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue5/sherman.htm)

Sherman tries to show herself not as the ideal "beautiful" woman that men love to gaze upon but as real women, an individual. The idea of the art she produces is to bulldoze the image of women that men have constructed throughout the years and show that confident and "unfeminine" women don't have to attempt to look that way to be seen as beautiful. "Cindy Sherman frequently uses, distorts and messes with archetypes and stereotypes of women and their portrayal in the mass media and art. Untitled #92 is a mockery of how women are portrayed in mens magazines." (HTTP://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/feminist-art-practices.html) Cindy Sherman did not want to use materials such as paints to present her work, as she thought photography was something that everyone could relate to without knowing much about contemporary art. Cindy Sherman herself claims that her work justifies itself and she doesn't wish to preach about Feminism: "The work is what it is and hopefully It's seen as feminist work, or feminist-advised work, but I'm not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff." (HTTP://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue5/sherman.htm)

The ideas that Sherman introduced with her posed photographs trying to project different and conflicting images of herself with the intention of proving that you dont have to conform with the sterotypes that society expects women to look like. In many ways she was before her time. Modern society has become more image consious as proved by the desire for young people on social networking sites such as MySpace, all trying to create similar perfect images of themselves, with all the individuality removed many of them become clones of the celebrities they admire. (HTTP://www.feministartrevolution.blogspot.com/2008/06-cindy-sherman.html, 02.06.08)