Exhibitions
Thu, Oct 10
|Golden West College Art Gallery
"Femella"
An exhibition focusing on female archetypes and feminine representations, all created by female artists.
Time & Location
Oct 10, 2019, 10:00 AM – Dec 07, 2019, 2:00 PM
Golden West College Art Gallery, 15751 Gothard Street, Huntington Beach, CA, USA
About the event
“Femella”
October 10 – December 7, 2019
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 10, 5-8PM
"Femella" is Latin for female, and is the root of our contemporary terminology of female. After longstanding use alongside “Male,” “Femella” morphed into Female, bringing both words in-line with the modern usage. There is no prefix Fe in the word Female, it stands on its own, and only after centuries of misspelling did the words Female and Male acquire their similarities.
The exhibition “Femella” at GWC Art Gallery is a group exhibition that focuses on female archetypes and feminine representations that also stands on its own. The definition of feminine has expanded exponentially in the last twenty-plus years as has our understanding of how to express the feminine through imagery and words. This exhibition highlights the vast and varied canopy of femininity through artworks of all types, dealing with how women are represented through imagery and how the world at large understands females through simplified and common archetypes.
Historically, we have looked to the Greek goddesses and mythological females in stories to show us how to express or identify the female archetypes and expressions of femininity. However, today’s version of femininity is much more complex than the Greek goddess archetypes would allow.
Femininity is often defined as a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. The concept of feminine is made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors. This makes it distinct from the definition of the biological female sex, as both males and females can exhibit feminine traits. But the traditional definition of femininity doesn’t consider the details or complexities in order to give us an accurate picture of what it means to be female today.
“Femella” explores the complicated definition of contemporary femininity through the eyes of female artists, including: Chloe Allred, Kaela Carson, Sapira Cheuk, Annie Compean, Katie Dezember, Robin Johnson, Catherine Kaleel, Lauren Mendelsohn-Bass, Amelia Mulkey, Elizabeth Mulkey, Aixa Oliveras, Naida Osline, Serena Potter, Amy Runyen, Kerri Sabine Wolf, Ana Sanchez, Kristine Schomaker, Joy Shannon, Suzanne Shifflett, Cynthia Sitton, Pamela Susan Rush, Suzanne Walsh, Sydney Walters, Nicole Yang, and more.
GWC Art Gallery
Golden West College
Fine Arts Building, Rm 108
15751 Gothard Street, Huntington Beach, CA