Betye Saar⁣⁣

Saar was a key player in the post-war American legacy of assemblage. Her attitude toward identity, assemblage art, and a visual language for Black art can be seen in the work of contemporary African-American artist Radcliffe Bailey, and Post-Black artist Rashid Johnson.

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Mereana Tōpia

Mereana Tōpia, better known as Maria, and her daughter Hēni Hoana or Jane Tōpia, were outstanding leaders in their local communities. Among their many activities they fostered the practice of traditional Māori arts and crafts.

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Hēni Hoana Tōpia

Mereana Tōpia, better known as Maria, and her daughter Hēni Hoana or Jane Tōpia, were outstanding leaders in their local communities. Among their many activities they fostered the practice of traditional Māori arts and crafts.

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Hēni Materoa Carroll

Hēni Materoa Carroll had achieved remarkable recognition for her advancement of Gisborne and of its people. Her quiet influence had transcended racial divisions and her mana was acknowledged by Māori and Pākehā alike.

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María Izquierdo

Izquierdo’s work opened up new possibilities for using symbols tied to Mexican traditions in a way other than to serve the nationalist discourse in art at the time. Izquierdo believed in art for art’s sake and wanted to go beyond the bounds of political art then. While the concept of art for art’s sake traced back to nineteenth-century European avant-gardes, in her context of post-revolutionary Mexico, this direction in art especially bucked the trend of using art as a propagandistic tool. Instead, art’s meaning, for Izquierdo, could be personal and variegated, not following the lines set by the politically powerful art establishment then.

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Rebecca Belmore

Canadian Rebecca Belmore has contributed to the international contemporary art world by developing a performance vocabulary for the representation of a (distinctly female) First Nations identity in art.

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