‘For the Record’

‘For the Record’ looks to be a wonderful collection of female contemporary artists that have been carefully selected to take the audience through the development of artwork produced by women. It is curated by Lisa Beauchamp (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery) and Rachel Bradley (Freelance Curator) who together brought forward this selection of artists, sufficiently teasing most of us with sneak peeks on twitter.

Lisa Beauchamp comments; “We are delighted to be able to showcase the work of some incredible female artists in this exhibition and to celebrate the reopening of the Waterhall Gallery. Incorporating works by artists such as Ana Maria Pacheco, Mary Kelly, Emmy Bridgwater, Alice Channer and Turner-prize nominee Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, we hope this exhibition will open up an interesting dialogue between these artists and showcase the strength and diversity of Birmingham’s collections alongside some stand-out loans from the Arts Council Collection. It is great for our visitors to be able to explore more of these amazing works.”

Hopefully with some of the names given there you have either noticed an artist that you’ve already wanted to see the work of or you will be able to find out a little bit more about them and what their work has achieved.

Alongside this exhibition will be the reveal of two West Midlands based female artists Faye Claridge and Barbara Walker. Barbara Walker’s practice includes drawing and painting, and has created a series of works called ‘Show and Tell’ in which she draws portraits of young men and boys, focusing on key items of clothing that assert dominance and personality without having to depict their faces. This selective focus carries with it the significance that cultural symbolism can have by bringing about a certain image or atmosphere just by the depiction of certain types of clothes. What messages are chosen and which are incidental due to our learnt response?

Faye Claridge’s work is founded in digital media, and she creates a sense of ‘otherness’ and mythology that;

“…Explores relational subjectivity and self-awareness through the awareness of ‘the other’ and ‘the past’. With an inability to focus on the ever-shifting present, I believe we instead try to explore our identities in relation to (the distance of) others, in relation to a (performed) role and in relation to the (imagined) past. As such, much of my work looks at personal and community identity through the re-interpretation of British tradition. My photographs reference museum tableau and grand portraiture and present subjects drawn from national customs and folklore.”

Their success and strong artwork deserves to hold a place next to the collection already selected, and will bring the history of female artists within contemporary art well and truly into the present day.

For the Record opens today (27th January) and runs until the 29^th of June.