Imaging Women: 24 Works on Paper Artist Marilyn Artus

 By Jessika Davis OVAC Intern

Marilyn Artus, You and Me, Mixed media with machine and hand embroidery, 16” x 20”, 2013

With machine and hand embroidery, Oklahoma City artist Marilyn Artus displays her fascination with female stereotypes in this piece, You and Me.

Some of the images are textbook illustrations that show broken parts of the nervous and skeletal system represent stereotypes of “the virgin and the fallen woman, and all the ladies in between,” said Artus.

How do you classify your style of work? Could you explain?
Artus: I am an artist/researcher/feminist/activist. My style springs from those parts of who I am.

I am a mixed media artist. My work would not be as powerful if they were just paintings. The fact that they all have either hand or machine embroidery, a craft that was a pleasure and yet also an example of binding to the home out of the workforce for our mothers, grandmothers or great grandmothers, helps me round out the meaning of each work with the media and the message working together.

What interests you the most about the image of the female? Why?
Artus: I am passionate about women’s rights. As a person and an artist I am also interested in trying to understand myself more and how I am unique and similar to others. I like to juxtapose the often contradictory stereotypes that women journey through during their lives. I hope that women viewers can find something they can relate to or understand in my pieces. And I hope that men looking at them can get some insight into the female persona.

This artwork is featured in the 24 Works on Paper exhibition on exhibition at Redlands Community College  during August and September, 2013 and touring Oklahoma through December 2014. See venues and more information at www.24works.org.