My practice is centered on a series of self-portraits exploring my own female sexuality.

The reaction to these paintings has been that I cannot make them because they are not feminist and further, that I am undermining the progress made by the feminist movement. My position is that the feminist movement has given women the power to paint whatever we want. Why talk about the “male gaze” when women have eyes too?

I am stepping into my power now and will continue to explore my body from a place of safety and control, to push the concept of feminism past people’s comfort zones, asking why it is “wrong” or “un-feminist” for a female painter to evoke the gaze – male or female.