Women have always been depicted in art; however, there have not been many mentions of their talent. It seems like only men have been portrayed in the Western artistic world. Thanks to technological advances in the 21st century and the rise of women in the field, more women are getting into the spotlight. This article will examine some of the remarkable female artists of today. They have a huge following on social media, and some of them had millions of dollars prior to turning twenty. They're self-made and have proven that becoming an artist is a real possibility.
Arghavan Khosravi
Arghavan Khosravi, an Iranian artist, is based in New York. Her cultural heritage heavily influences her work, incorporating textiles from Iran and reflecting on the status of women in her home country, as well as her own sense of alienation. Khosravi is the 2019 recipient of Joan Mitchell's Painters and Sculptors Grant and received the Walter Feldman Fellowship in 2017 and 2018. Her work is part of the collections at Newport Art Museum and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
Khosravi (b. 1984, Shahr-e-Kord, Iran) earned her MFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design after completing studio art at Brandeis University. She previously received a BFA in Graphic Design from Tehran Azad University and an MFA in Illustration from the University of Tehran. She has exhibited at the Orlando Museum of Art, FL; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China; Newport Art Museum, RI; and Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA. She has also participated in residencies such as Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA; Studios at MassMoCA, North Adams, MA; Monson Arts, Monson, ME; and Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn, NY. Khosravi resides in New Jersey and works in New York as a member artist of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts.
Her work is not just visually captivating, but also loaded with political commentary. Bright colors and soft skin are juxtaposed with bizarre elements like ankle bonds, explosives, fragments of sculptures, broken structures, ropes, keys, and locks. Symbols of societal censorship, such as locks or masks, reflect the artist's experiences growing up in Iran.
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo's work made an impression not only in Mexico but across the world. Her artworks provide deep insight into her life, including her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera and her inability to have children. Through her paintings, viewers experience her suffering and gain insight into her personality.
Kahlo was regarded as one of Mexico's most outstanding artists. She began self-portraits mostly after a serious bus accident. Kahlo became politically active and married fellow communist artist Diego Rivera in 1929. Her paintings were exhibited in Paris and Mexico prior to her death in 1954.
Self-portraits were a recurring theme in her life. Although Kahlo didn’t sell many paintings during her lifetime, she occasionally painted commissioned portraits. She had one solo show in Mexico in 1953, a year before her death at age 47. Her works are now sold at very high prices; for example, on May 6, 2006, her self-portrait Roots sold for $5.62 million at Sotheby’s in New York — a record for a Latin American work.
Caroline Larsen
Caroline Larsen is a Canadian artist based in Toronto, known for her sculpture-like paintings created using pastry tubes filled with paint. Her works are vibrant, textured, and visually captivating.
Born in Toronto in 1980, Larsen studied Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo, earned her Art Education Diploma at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and later obtained an MFA with honors from Pratt in 2015.
At first glance, her work appears as fabric or embroidery. In reality, Larsen pours paint from pipe bags directly onto canvas. Each painting requires about a month to design — from researching images online, planning the color scheme, to finalizing the concept.
Claire Tabouret
Claire Tabouret is a French artist based in LA. She is known for expressive paintings of characters, often exploring personal identity, childhood, and social isolation. Her works have sold for around half a million dollars at auctions in 2020.
Tabouret studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Her art reflects vulnerability, human interactions, and layers of paint and fabric. She explores themes such as sexuality, conflict, love, and identity through paintings, drawings, sculptures, and monotypes. Her immersive mural at Fabregues Castle in southern France exemplifies her timeless, often carnivalesque style.
Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas, a South African painter, is recognized as one of today’s most significant artists. Her works, characterized by soft, transparent strokes, offer glimpses into her childhood under apartheid and explore emotions, race, sexuality, and love.
Dumas was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and studied Visual Arts at Cape Town University between 1972 and 1975, completing her final year in Haarlem, Netherlands. She has lived and worked in Amsterdam since 1976 and has exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale and Tate Gallery. She works mostly with oils on canvas and ink on paper, using sources ranging from magazines to personal memorabilia.
Many female artists beyond these have had a major influence on popular culture, with some taking traditional paths and others inspiring the rise of online art schools.
By Manesha Peiris (2022)
