The Dancer

2025, acrylic and oil on canvas, 4 x 6 ft

For some time, I have been interested in themes which address the experience of being female in our contemporary culture.

With this work, I was inspired by the visual language of Cubist artist Jean Metzinger’s Two Nudes, Two Women to address this theme. Though I did not employ Cubism’s fracture of planes of the figure, I did repurpose the visual language of the figure in broken form placed within triangular structures to communicate the duality of both the splintering or fracturing of the female psyche within the hierarchical power structures of the patriarchal world as well as the resilience and breaking free of the female spirit within such oppression. This message of duality is reinforced by limiting the palette to two complementary colours. The metallic “halo” and scattering of copper forms points to the resilient strength and power inherent in the divine feminine, following art history’s use of gold for the Madonna. Placing the figure in cambré derrier pose not only points to ballet as a metaphor for the female experience but also reclaims the dancer motif from Edgar Degas’ objectifying gaze.  I chose to have the figure nude rather than in ballet uniform to both reclaim the female nude from the male gaze and to indicate I am speaking of women in all of society, and not ballet alone.

The Dancer is currently exhibited at the Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts at Mount Allison University.