Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Empowerment
November 10, 2012 – January 6, 2013
Nicole Bauberger: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Empowerment
Opening Reception: Friday November 16, 7 – 9 pm
Nationally recognized, Peterborough-born, now Whitehorse-based Nicole Bauberger contends that 17th century artist Artemisia Gentileschi’s self-empowerment arose through painting, in the midst of the misogyny of the period. In her Artemisia Gentileschi’s self-empowerment suite (1988), Bauberger undertakes through self-portraiture a retelling of a Renaissance artist’s experience of painting. She does this by creating two self-portraits using herself as the stand-in for Gentileschi.
The paintings are titled A Repainting of Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1630, chained and A Repainting of Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1630, unchained.
Bauberger also creates a 17th century journal in which she recounts her experience, writing The Artemisia Series, a sustained act of re-imaging the works of Gentileschi was, in a sense, a re-imagining undertaken through the careful absorption and re-telling of the 17th century artist’s experience of painting. The performance over time of the learning and retelling bears strong links to the structure of storytelling, and reminds us of the deep and often all-too-easily-forgotten–perhaps denied–links between visual and oral culture.