Chantal Fraser, It hangs with rattlesnakes and rubbish 2013, digital video, 4:15. Courtesy of the artist and Spiro Grace Art Rooms (SGAR)
The theory that human females are the more colourful of the species has been around for many years. Women still struggle to crack glass ceiling in art prices or overcome the gender imbalance on boards, but the flip side of such traditional gender lines is an assumption that females are the more decorative gender.
A new exhibition at QUT Art Museum, Quaternary aims to investigate if art by women is by default more decorative; more colourful.
Guest curator of Quaternary Courtney Pedersen told ArtsHub that it is questionable whether female artists use colour more than men. ‘There’s this cliché that exists that men were better at composition and line and women were better at colour,’ she said.
‘We are kind of playing along with that a bit, and saying let’s look at women and colour, let’s pull this idea out and explore it.’
