Natalia Arias’ photos inspire a rethink about the female form
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The very first piece on display in Natalia Arias’ new exhibition, Femininity Beyond Archetypes, is the Colombian photographer’s version of a restroom sign. The piece titled, “Modern Venus,” draws from one of the most recognizable symbols: a silhouette of a body wearing a dress. Even without a face, we instantly know it represents a woman.
The original image, Arias notes, expresses a female without an identity, empty and “with a cold attitude.” In Arias’ version, though, she has a real woman’s curves, skin tone and personality. She wears bright red nail polish, dazzling red shoes, and a set of red bracelets. The personal accessories create an identity despite her faceless form.
Throughout the exhibition, Arias captures a series of contemporary staged portraits and uses them to challenge long-standing social constructs. Females, for centuries, have been relegated to childbearing and sexual services but often depicted as powerless and unfit for identity. In the show, up now at the Art Museum of the Americas, Arias exhibits work from two series: Taboo and Venus.
The Taboo series, captured between 1999 and 2005, places concepts of womanhood under the microscope and removes, then redefines, their negative connotations. Take the written word “Virginidad (Virginity),” Arias aimed to reverse unpleasant associations like sin, anguish, fright and concealment and replace them with positive feelings of sensuality, peacefulness and transparency. The photograph acknowledges that “the rupture of the hymen is perfectly natural biological process and perhaps even beautiful,” Arias said.
Other photos redefine society’s perspective of women. Arias portrays beauty in spite of imperfection, the irreplaceable moment of bringing a new life into the world, for instance. She even playfully covers the ongoing debate surrounding women’s need to tame “down there.”
She created the Venus series between 2005 and 2010, after the Taboo works. These photographs focus on their namesake, Venus, the Roman goddess of love, sex, and fertility. The series explores present day Venuses: strong, powerful goddess-like women who embody love, sensuality and importance—because what is life without women?, she notes with her choice to include a photograph of a still and helpless child without a mother. It is the mother who brings life and nurtures the child into a functioning adult, she seems to be saying.
Using another iconic symbol of womanhood, Arias draws from a well-known work of art, the figurine “Woman of Willendorf” also known as the “Venus of Willendorf,” used to symbolize fertility and good health. When creating her own interpretation of this timeless treasure, Arias found that the figure could represent the present-day woman in a different light. Her vision is a curvaceous, confident, and fertile woman—”a real woman,” Arias said.
Arias takes down the stereotypical put-downs directed at women and praises the female body, mind, and spirit in Femininity Beyond Archetypes, giving women back their individual identities.
–Bria Baylor
201 18 Street NW
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