Early Career and Awards    Education    Annette Bezor's Influential Pieces    Contemporary Works    Art Cushions  
1. References

2. External links

Annette Bezor (born April 5, 1950 in Adelaide, Australia)^[1] is an Adelaide based painter, best known for her distinctive feminist picturesque portrayals of women from both classical historical paintings, popular culture and anonymous women. Bezor recreates these women as contemporary stylized symbols to reveal and reclaim the power and impact the originals. Her appropriation of imagery and incorporation of the past seek to push her viewer's perception of women and female sexuality. Though Bezor’s artistic visions challenge the conventional constitution of painting her stylistic approach also in itself pose question to the nature of and history of painting itself. Though these strategies do stray from the norm they are predominantly used to create prevailing metaphors. Furthermore, Bezor encourages individuals to recognize the newly recentred gaze of these women to show the ways in which societies attitudes are geared towards women and how they are represented in contemporary art and popular culture. Bezor has been highlighted as one of Australia’s female foremost painters^[2]. Since graduating from the South Australian School of Art in 1977^[1] Annette Bezor has been featured throughout Australia in a multitude of different gallery's as well as has been nominated and been recipient for many awards.

Early Career and Awards

Annette Bezor has been the recipient of the ArtsSA Fellowship in 2010^[3], New Work/Internation Presentation Grant 1998 and 2002 and the inaugural SALA (South Australian Living Artists) Monograph in 1999^[3]. Arts SA in 2006, International Assistance Grant, Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council in 2003, New Work Grant Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. In 1980 she was a co-winner of the Maude Vizard Wholohan Art Prize and in 1992 won First Prize for The Nude: Sara Weis Award^[2]. In 1993 and 1999 Bezor was exhibited in the “Portia Geach Memorial Award” and in 2005 was Archibald Finalist^[4].

2010 Arts SA Fellowship, Arts SA, Adelaide

2006 New Work/ International Presentation Grant, Arts SA, Adelaide

2004 Short Notice Grant, Arts South Australia, Adelaide

2003 International Assistance Grant, Visual Arts Board, Australia Council for the Arts,

Sydney

2002 New Work Grant, Visual Arts Board, Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney

2001 Project Grant, Arts SA, Adelaide

1999 Recipient, SALA Monograph, South Australian Living Artists Festival, Adelaide

1998 New Work Grant, Visual Arts Board, Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney

1996 Project Grant, Arts SA, Adelaide

1992 Winner, Sara Weis Award, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

1990 Australia Council Fellowship, Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney

1988 Individual Grant, South Australian Department for the Arts, Adelaide

1986 Power Studio, Cite International des Arts, Paris, France

Standard Grant, Visual Arts Board, Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney

1980 Co-Winner, Maude Vizard Wholohan Art Prize, Art Gallery of South Australia,

Adelaide

1977 John Christie Wright Memorial Prize for Life Drawing and Painting, South Australian

School of Art, Adelaide^[3]

Education

Bezor being amongst only a handful of individuals in her generation was able to par take in the “advanced education systems degree programs”. The program encompassed the consideration of contemporary art theory that took place from the 1970’s through the 1980’s

Annette Bezor's Influential Pieces

Annette Bezor from early in her career was identified as a feminist artist. With the production of “The Snake is Dead” in 1981^[5] exemplified an immensely different view of women with reference to their role in society, the depiction of them and the role of the artist. The two most prominent themes seen throughout Bezor’s work are the feminist concern with the body and the male gaze. Her work has been said to be on one hand body-oriented, feminist, performance/post-object art of the 1970’s, whereas her work has also been looked at as the reconsideration of traditional representations of women by male artists. “The Snake is Dead” depicts traditional Australian landscape but also features a woman striking a pose very similar to classical nudes such as Francisco Goya’s La Maja Desnuda and Titian's Venus of Urbino. Thus it has been proposed that the woman is not the sexual object or model of the male artist, further challenging the male gaze. It is also said to be that the falcon overhead, with the snake, symbolizes the castration of the male view. Thus in one piece Bezor deconstructs centuries of Western art. Bezor began to move away from social realism in the 1980’s. Bezor since has predominantly been focused with the themes of contemporary views of women’s sexuality, gender politics and using painting as a tool of manipulation and representation. In more contemporary time Annette Bezor asserts that the notion of the canvas is a record “stained” with or by the characters. In some of her pieces instead of using a canvas Bezor uses mattress ticking in order to explicitly depict the bed being the site of action. In doing so centralizing the bed Bezor hopes to depict the passion of the character as well as provide aspects of performance, drawing on the historical ties with female performance. In the process of changing her mediums Bezor’s style began to change, she moved away from the landscapes and perspectival construction towards layering her imagery. Bezor’s work began to push the viewer to engage with the imagery.

In 1983^[5] she produced “Paradise Confined", again depicting an Australian landscape, though in this piece she incorporates the blending of beach, forrest and farm into a cohesive site. “Paradise confined” illuminates the lovers strewn across a backdrop that epitomizes the Australian continent. In this piece she arved Aboriginal drawings, symbolic of the colonized land. In numerous other works Bezor carves creatures of other relevant imagery featured in the painting.

Annette Bezor’s next pivotal work is “Lost Child”(1985)^[5], pictured is an Aboriginal child with blonde hair and western clothing. This being a representation of the traditional Indigenous culture being subverted by Western culture. The child represents the colonial influence and the is a symbol of the disruption of Indigenous culture. Bezor selected the traditional landscape in hopes to provoke thought on the colonialist view of Australian history, additionally the discarded cans were intended to convey the effects alcohol had on Indigenous communities. As almost all of Bezor’s work reflects the importance and emergence of social issues, this piece is distinctly geared towards the time it was produced. A time where indigenous land rights and the maltreatment of indigenous communities through out Australia.

Bezor in the 1980’s was predominantly concerned with the themes of the reconsidering of art and of landscape and performance/body art. She typically used techniques such as placing the female subject in atypical modern approaches. Bezor began to shift away from her previous realist settings and moved into addressing her own subjectivity and sexuality in her work. By the mid-1990s  she had focused her work into the reconsideration of subjectivity and sexuality generally.

Moving forward “Tensions 3” (1999) looks at issues such as sexuality, gender, dominant views of art history and the xenophobic views of the “other”. In Bezos piece we see the societal fear of the Asian “other”. This was a predominant theme in Australia’s political and social history. Bezor’s “Tension 3” appropriates Vladimir Tretchikoff’s imagery, as the popularity of Tretchikoff prints were extremely popular in Australian homes throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

“Room”^[5] produced in 1999 we see the return of the reconsideration of landscape for Bezor. This piece was a collage. The “Room” seeks to highlight the traditional work of women and their conventional role as homemakers. The piece also differs from the norm as it is a painting within a painting. We see the landscape form as apart of the interior, displaying the effects of  the appropriation by our culture.

Bezor’s concern with  women’s portrayal in contemporary media through out the 1990’s continued to grow^[5]. Her choice of subject matter best exemplified her passion fro the depiction of women in media and the ubiquitous misrepresentation of women in media such as magazines.

Annette Bezor embarked on creating the “Smoulder” series in 2000^[5], Smoulder continued with the use of the stylistic devices seen in the “Tension” series, though she began incorporating pornography as a topic to elaborate on. “Smoulder I” directly appropriates pornographic images from magazines. The woman’s body being the most centralized aspect of pornographic imagery, though in Bezor’s piece the woman's body is cut out. The “Smoulder” series begins to establish Bezor’s from of pop art that seeks to appropriate and reincorporate pop culture. Specifically in this piece we see the transformation of the previously historical tendency of  male painters to represent women in ways that objectified them. Bezor immensely combats this in her more provoking series ,“Smoulder”.

Contemporary Works

Annette Bezor prides herself in a very unique stylistic approach, thus her pieces require quite a bit of time and with approaching her 40 year career mark she has committed to producing 10 paintings a year. Bezor has told Adelaide Review that she is an artists who “never stops”^[6]. Additionally, she continues to evolve and diversify her work to adapt to the changing contemporary times, she has developed a line of “Art Cushions”^[7] . Stylistically Bezor to this day still looks to change up her approaches, such as her newer additions that incorporate gold leaf, differing backgrounds, and overlays^[6].

Art Cushions

Annette Bezor’s development of her “Art Cushions”, continue to exemplify her fascination with the exploitation of women. Though her cushions differ in that she created them in hopes of having a more “accessible”  and more “affordable” works of art. The small 80x80 cm unframed cushions or packed with bright  intense imagery. In the production of her cushion she also aimed to create a hybrid piece of art that resembles a soft sculpture that can stand up in the corner but are also tough enough that you can sit on them. Bezor tells Adelaide Review that they are made to be “a useable piece of fine art”^[8].

References

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