Anonymous Was A Woman at Clint Roenisch Gallery

Artists: Julia Adelgren, Clara Adolphs, Chechu Álava, Penny Davenport, Rebecca Harper, Mary Herbert, Angela Lane, Joanna Logue, Gosia Machon, Heidrun Rathgeb, Alice Watkins, Marenne Welten

Exhibition title: Anonymous Was A Woman

Organized by: Brit Pruiksma

Venue: Clint Roenisch, Toronto, Canada

Date: January 22 – February 26, 2022

Photography: Toni Hafkenscheid / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Clint Roenisch, Toronto

“For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.” – Virginia Woolf, A Room Of One’s Own, 1929.

Anonymous Was A Woman is an exhibition of new work by women, exalting the breadth and depth of their painting practices. Organized by Brit Pruiksma, this group show draws together work by twelve artists from outside Canada. The exhibition takes its cue from Virginia Woolf’s 1929 text A Room of One’s Own, an essay on the social and economic disadvantages women have experienced across history, from lack of education to lack of financial independence. Woolf considers what this has meant for female creativity, positing that women have always been forced to seek success in the face of many obstacles and in the knowledge that their art might not even be recognized as such. “For most of history,” she writes, “anonymous was a woman.”

This exhibition honours the extent to which the position of women has improved since the days of forced female anonymity, while also acknowledging how far there is to go. Women artists invariably face specific challenges, from childcare arrangements to hidden emotional labour; multi-tasking is a common modus operandi. These artists employ complex, multifaceted approaches to their practices, which are manifested across a variety of media from oil to pastel.

Woolf argues that in order to make art, a woman must have a space in which to do so: a room of one’s own. Anonymous Was A Woman explores the significance of these creative spaces, from the traditional studio to the local landscape to the kitchen table.

Each artist has a different response to their workspace, some of which are shared with children or collaborators, some of which are shut off from the world. Many of the artists refer to hybrid psychological and physical spaces where the female mind and body meet the forces of more-than-human nature and the expectations of society.

Anonymous Was A Woman attempts to tease out the interconnections between inner and outer worlds, exploring themes of intimacy, possibility, and reflection. The curator seeks to contextualise the creation of artworks, drawing attention to the threads of “thinking in common” behind each painting and the importance of the physical and social circumstances in which it was made. The group show format pays homage to “the experience of the mass… behind the single voice”, highlighting currents of shared thought, art historical legacies, and the ongoing shared actions taken to improve the position of women.

-Text by Anna Souter