Female Artists Exhibit Opens at RU Art Gallery

Rowan University’s art gallery opened its first exhibition of the season, featuring prominent female artists that made their mark on the artistic world in the 1970s.

This exhibition, “Better Than Ever: Women Figurative Artists of the ’70s SoHo Co-ops,’” only features work done by female artists, a regularly overlooked area of the art world. It hopes to shed light on the accomplishments of these female artists for students whose knowledge of modern art does not expand past Andy Warhol or Jackson Pollock.

Dr. Andrew Hottle, an assistant professor in the art history department whose research focuses on feminist art, assisted in bringing this exhibition to Rowan University.

“It’s a traveling exhibition,” Hottle said. “We got them to come to Rowan University because they often come to smaller schools where it is more likely to reach a female audience.”

Hottle still argues that the female art world is still a largely overlooked area.

“I’d like to see a time where artists are just artists,” Hottle said. “It should only be noted that an artist is female if she wants to be recognized as female.”

The gallery was composed of one painting each figure had painted back in the 1970s, accompanied by one of their recent works. The point of this structure was simple. Curator Sharyn Finnegan aimed to show the progression each artist had made since they hit the scene back in the ‘70s SoHo Co-ops.

“It shows where they began, but also kind of a, ‘where they are now,’” Finnegan said. “These women have been painting and in exhibitions throughout the past 40 years. It’s interesting to see how they have progressed.”

Finnegan was more than just the curator of this exhibition. Her own paintings were seen on the walls of the gallery.

“This exhibition is kind of based around me,” Finnegan said. “I have my own paintings displayed and women that I worked with in the beginning.”

Both of Finnegan’s paintings were nude paintings. The first is of her back when she began as an artist as a 35 year old, while the second is a personal portrait of herself at 60 years old. Both paintings show her holding a paint brush, demonstrating that she was the artist and therefore had the power.

The exhibition is compromised of 19 artists who displayed their work in galleries they all came together and owned in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. The featured artists include, but are not limited to, big names such as Cynthia Mailman and Sylvia Sleigh. These two women are highly respected within the art world but have yet to achieve recognition in the eye of the public.

“It’s important for us women to stand together,” Finnegan said. “When women stand together, we can feed off of each other’s strength. It’s good to get like-minded artists together. It’s always better to be in numbers.”

The exhibition will remain open in the Rowan University gallery until Oct. 2. The gallery is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., and on Saturday from noon until 5 p.m.

Admission into the gallery is free for the general public.