December 2009

SPEECHLESS

In Sudan, Lucy Ahmed Hussein received a one-month jail sentence for refusing to acknowledge her crime of wearing trousers.

In a world of borders, there is one language which easily crosses oceans and translates into legislation and tradition everywhere. That is the language of oppression against women. Made speechless by this overwhelming injustice, the women in my paintings imagine a borderless world where every viewer is invited to become a witness and ally.

These paintings use iconography drawn from history, personal and current events, language and mythology. In each piece, an archetypal female stands “Speechless” at the center. But these images are not stories told again. The figures in the paintings transform their origins and become new. The viewer is brought to an imagined territory where women both wear the scars of their oppression and transcend them. They are the woman next door and the girl in the desert. In a globalized world, they are also you.
My paintings speak of life, not death.

Translating “Speechless” into many different languages, this visual polyglot will leave no viewer untouched.

www.jenniebooth.com