Women and Art

I went to a great art exhibit in Chicago! Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman are Chicago photographers who have collaborated on photographic narratives since 1979. Coming of age during the second wave of feminism, they have continued to explore the subject of women within the cultural mythology of our time.

Women are rarely satisfied with their appearance. There is intense pressure through media and the beauty industry for older women to look young (and for young girls to look older.) We lack imagery that addresses women’s historical and creative contributions. Affirmative images can bring us together and allow the natural process of aging, individually, in a community and in an historical continuum.

In their series, All Things Are Always Changing, Ciurej and Lochman challenge perceptions about women and aging. They reconfigured the boundaries of history to express the time and timelessness they feel. They debate proportion and the classical ideal with the Greeks and borrow the Romans’ concept of authority, accomplishment and immortality through their portraiture. Michelangelo’s heroic intensity challenged them to reconsider the idea of divinity expressed through the body. Finally, they conjured a future where we connect to the infinite.

They consider this work their personal Stonehenge, Acropolis and Sistine Chapel. Visit their website: www.ciurejlochmanphoto.com.

By Lara Bersano