Celebrate IWD at The Other Art Fair
International Women’s Day is approaching, and The Other Art Fair is celebrating all things female empowerment. Presented by Saatchi Art, the Fair returns to The Truman Brewery from 7-10 March. Alongside a unique programme of events, attendees will have the opportunity to buy artwork directly from the 150+ independent artists on exhibit.
Returning to The Truman Brewery this March, The Other Art Fair (TOAF) is continuing its mission to address gender inequality in the art industry. With an artist-led setup and an impressive lineup comprising an impressive 69% female identifying artists, alongside a program introducing fresh female-focused workshops and features to the Fair, The Other Art Fair is the place to celebrate female empowerment this International Women’s Day.
Among the line-up are standout female artists using their art to protest, express, and challenge the social expectations and inequalities associated with being a woman in the art industry and wider society. From Willow Eve Chapman Stacy’s witty embroidery calling out everyday sexism, to Andrea Zvadova’s portraits exploring the often overlooked and usual aspect of female beauty, to a curated exhibition from the East London Strippers Collective empowering the voices of sex workers, there are a variety of mediums, techniques and voices to support and invest in.
Andrea Zvadova is a Slovakian portrait and fine art photographer exploring the uncelebrated and unusual beauty of her female subjects, emphasising unique features with a soft visual style and acute composition. Her macro and portrait images capture peculiar details, transforming a standard beauty image into a window of curiosity and abstraction. Capturing human features on a macro scale allows Zvadova to share a nuance between fine forms, natural tones and vibrancy. In her Torso and Essence series, Zvadova captures only the midsection of her female subjects creating a striking vulnerability and delicate empowerment through the composition of these naked female bodies.
London-based Willow Eve Chapman Stacey has swiftly gained a reputation for herself by showcasing her unique medium at various art fairs and exhibitions. Combining embroidery with bold statements inspired by everyday sexist remarks men make to women, her witty interpretation of feminine rage is simultaneously assertive and delicate. Phrases like ‘but she’s just a woman’ are embroidered onto textiles traditionally associated with femininity or a woman’s prescribed “role” in our patriarchal society. Stacey’s canvases have included lace-trimmed doilies, cleaning cloths, and plates, criticising the outdated, domestic role women are too often forced into.
Contemporary figurative artist Aly Lloyd redefines the female form by reconstructing figures through lines and shape, simplistic silhouettes and patterns. By deconstructing and reassembling expressive emotional figures in various states of abstraction and chromatics, Lloyd explores the representation of human emotion and identities in the present day from a female perspective. Her compositions use geometric shapes, symmetry and asymmetry to create a sensory experience of movement, rhythm and emotion that she hopes will move her viewer.
Lauren Mele’s figurative oil paintings unabashedly portray women delighted in their skins, exploring the intricacies in themes of lust and the grotesque when applied to the human body. Embracing flaws, sexuality and indulgence, she hopes to inspire viewers to engage with their own physicality on a more intimate and accepting level. Her recent Siren series appropriates glamour magazines, imagery like from Playboy, re-contextualising them through a fine art lens, more specifically, through oil paint.
The East London Stripper Collective (ELSC) will make their art fair debut at TOAF this March, howcasing their very own curated hang, comprising works created by members of the collective responding to theme of sex work. Many of the contributing artists currently or formerly came to tripping, porn & sex work as a means to help fund their artistic practice. The exhibited work ubverts the idea of the muse, giving a voice to the models instead of them being passively portrayed by artists. The curated hang includes a mix of mediums and approaches, featuring paintings focused on hyper realism and pin-up girl horror, photography documenting candid moments outside of the performance space, emphasising the camaraderie within the community and the ‘Unsolicited Brick Pic’ series, which sees unsolicited dick pics, non-consensually printed on house bricks as a statement on consent. Alongside their curated hang, ELSC invites visitors to contribute to the theme of female empowerment by taking part in their unique life drawing workshops.
This thrilling rendition of a traditional classic will include high-octane aerial poses, pole tricks, stripping and erotic performance colliding with the art world in a forty-five-minute slot costing just £15 per person.
The Other Art Fair presented by Saatchi Art is a global platform gathering creative thinkers, pleasure seekers and game-changing artists to share unforgettable experiences. The artist-led fair combines boundary-pushing yet always affordable artworks with live features and curious encounters; previous iterations have included interactive theatre, taxidermy classes, experiential dining, and incredible renowned guest artists.
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