nora blanck contact

Chalk pastel on Stonehenge Paper
Each 24” x 30”

”WOMEN IN ARMOUR is a group of drawings in which I was considering ideas of vulnerability and protection. I was also looking at the representation of feminist concerns and inclusion on the page of women of different ethnicities and ages.

I had been drawing non-objective abstract images in THIN SKIN THICK SKIN, creating opaque and translucent layers of chalk pastel as loose visual metaphors for the ideas of vulnerability and protection.

On a trip to the Tower of London I discovered the British National Amory collection - suits of armor - and came face to face with the startlingly anthropomorphic evidence of my concerns. I began to think about armour from a feminist perspective: how could the notion of protection take on a powerful connotation, and how could I image the sticky complexity and breadth of woman's interaction in the social world? I wanted to acknowledge aggression as being the domain of women as well as men. How do I deal with the power of the aggressive and defensive elements of my own life, let alone in the battlefields of the globe, if I could not see - make visible - the breadth and difficulty of these issues for my self.