Artemisia Gentileschi immediately comes to mind when the subject of feminism crops up in the art world; and anger and passion immediately come to mind following that. Gentileschi, an Italian early baroque painter of the generation heavily influenced by Caravaggio, was the first woman to be taken seriously as an artist in Rome because it was believed that she could depict passionate content just as well, if not better than a man could. It was widely believed that such talent was beyond the scope of women. Women have come a long way since then, but Gentileschi’s anger and passion have paved the way for female artists to be known for a great deal more.

Feminine Rising, as the name would suggest, was a celebration of powerful women in art: three women in fact, who are making waves on Jamaica’s art scene and internationally: Jiivanii Redmarks, Margaret Stanley, and Amy Laskin. The exhibition took place on May 6 at Revolution Gallery and highlighted the complete feminine package. Jiivanii Redmarks’ A Cry in the Wind, portrait of a siren, gave us exactly what we expected.

A Cry in the Wind, presented on plasma, was born out of a scream that Redmarks needed desperately to release after fracturing her coccyx a few years ago. Having to stifle her screams for fear of disturbing her neighbours, when she got the chance to let it out, she recorded it. Shortly thereafter, she manipulated the sound, and having become a video artist, she added an image in motion. The image, through the movements of a woman in water from all angles, gives the most profound imagery of femininity. The woman is naked, though never inappropriately so, and the water pushes and pulls her, splashes all over, and it would appear at times that she pushes and pulls it just the same. The sound that serves as the backdrop is somewhat of a series of short and long, intense and relaxed bellows without any actual interruption. The piece emitted an overwhelming strength of spirit.

Illness was also at the base of the inspiration for Margaret Stanley’s Disembodiment II (floating), a mixed-media work of papier-mâché and fabric stretched across plyboard, with embroidery. “When I was sick last year, I would always go to Lime Cay, and floating was the only thing that made me feel better, it relaxed me,” says Stanley. “I decided to do a piece that depicted a woman floating,” she adds. She did just that as the piece was suspended by fishing wire from the ceiling to seem as if it were floating just below mid-air. The colours used were of the blue-green family: aquas and turquoises, unmistakably sea-like.

Amy Laskin brought us into ladylike charm with her mixed-media vases made of clay with overglaze enamel in a feminine silhouette, complete with handles reminiscent of arms “akimbo”. Blue Mountain Bustier showed scenery all over what would be the bustier had the piece been a woman, the head would have been a tight bunch of flowers, “made-up ones”, says Laskin. “I was inspired by the torch ginger lilies, but if you know what they look like, that’s not them.” She (the piece) even wears a double-layered floral skirt tied up with a pink bow and shows “leg” at the front but graces the floor from behind. The landscape depicted on the bust, as with all of Laskin’s work, is so detailed and realistic that “it makes you think either you are there, or it is popping out at you — it’s so lush”, remarked one passerby of the work. “But I’m not a realist,” explains Laskin, “I perform, a term that I made up, imaginary realism — it would be realism, but I put made-up things in it (like that word!)” Whatever you’d like to call it, it struck the perfect balance in the gallery as a throwback to a more graceful era, set in conjunction with the ultra-modern video art and highly contemporary floating piece. I’m sure the art scene is waiting with bated breath in anticipation of more “Feminine Risings”.