Roxana Halls - Artist Research
Roxana Halls is an English Painter who is well known for her work and her ideas in how she breaks down the stereotypes of femininity in a polite and almost comedic way. Similarly to Wiley’s work she understands the traditional representation of women’s portraits from years ago, women would not smile. Showing teeth was most likely an ugly trait and so Halls challenges this with almost every one of her paintings. She also puts a lot of time into the subject of women and food, the idea that a woman with a large appetite is not a feminine trait. The women in her portraits are all seen with big expressions on their faces, with large amounts of detail that represent both the beauty in their features and the flaws, which every women will have.
This particular piece above that Halls painted is from her collection called ‘Laughing While Leaving’ that shows a couple walking away from what we presume is their burning home. Along with their belongings and two cats they appear to be happy about the events that are occurring. I see this painting as quite an uplifting and extravagantly freedom exhuming piece. The couple are leaving behind the harsh and unfair expectations of what a feminine woman should be and entering a much more fulfilling life, where they can be themselves and not live up to unrealistic expectations. These expectations being a number of things, like the fact they are a gay couple, their large grins across their faces and the ‘unladylike’ manner and reaction to the fire and unfolding events behind them. I really love how Halls represents these women and how she is very similar to Wiley in the way the both take (most likely) personal experiences and really go to great lengths to express them in their work. Masculinity and Femininity are things that can effect so many of us, so the fact that their work can be seen, understood and inspiring for so many is something I really admire about what they are doing.
These last two pieces of hers represent the appetite section of her projects and how women should be feminine even when it comes to meeting. At first look some of these images could come across fairly haunting, especially the painting below. Due to the large and highly emotive expressions on their faces that we are not used to seeing from women in portrait paintings. But as we continue to look and analyse the whole image and what is going on, we begin to understand why Halls made these decisions. She makes every aspect of the image prominent, unlike traditional paintings the person is the prominent and usually contrasts from the background. But Halls makes everyone and everything prominent and obvious, allowing the whole scene to be taken in by the viewer. I think this is a nice link to the idea of going against the norm and representing something that is so different and unlike what we have seen before. This is the best way to begin taking down certain stereotypes and creating something completely new, that creates necessary and/or uncomfortable conversations.
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