Also see our list of:
10 Female Artists Who Have Shaped Art History
100 female artists you should know.
Names marked with (L) are local artists being NOTICED in our latest exhibit at d’Art Center in Norfolk, VA.
- Agnes Martin for more than forty years, Martin created serene paintings composed of grids and stripes. Her commitment to this spare style was informed by her belief in its ability to conjure profound, positive experiences in the viewer. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/agnes-martin
- Aimee Bruce (L) also known as HIGHONYOURSUPPLY, is an artist whose work ranges from colorfully cute to the magically morbid. Bruce has a portfolio of murals scattered throughout Hampton Roads VA. More at: https://www.aimee-bruce.com
- Amy Sherald is an American painter who works mostly as a portraitist depicting African Americans in everyday settings. https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/11577-amy-sherald/
- Ana Segovia paints common perceptions of cowboy culture, depicting figures from Mexican charros to white ranchers. https://www.karen-huber.com/ana-segovia-toy-boy
- Andrea Bowers Andrea Bowers is a Los Angeles-based American artist working in a variety of media including video, drawing, and installation. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/arts/design/andrea-bowers-museum-chicago-activist-art.html
- Ana Mendieta was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter, and video artist who is best known for her “earth-body” artwork. More at:https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/ana-mendieta
- Amrita Sher-Gil is a Hungarian-Indian painter. She has been called “one of the greatest avant-garde women artists of the early 20th century” and a pioneer in modern Indian art. https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/amrita-sher-gil/
- Arghavaan Khosravi is an Iranian-born American visual artist, and illustrator who investigates the aesthetics of ancient Persian miniature paintings… typically, the only women they portray have a subservient or secondary role, lacking agency and social significance. Khosravi’s paintings take a conscious look at how the value system transmitted by that iconography continues to shape Iranian gender politics today. https://www.arghavankhosravi.com/about
- Asiko Oluwa-Aderin (L) is an undergraduate student in NSU’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program, with a concentration in Graphic Design. Her works, expressed through digital and acrylic media, focus on appreciating black aesthetics and embracing one’s cultural heritage. More at: https://neonnfk.com/public-art/ghent-grab-go-mural/
- Augusta Savage was one of the leading artists of the Harlem Renaissance as well as an influential activist and arts educator. In 1939, Savage was the first African American woman to open her own art gallery in America – the Salon of Contemporary Negro Art in Harlem, NY. https://www.biography.com/artists/augusta-savage
- Avery Singer employs the binary language of computer programs and industrial materials in order to remove the trace of the artist’s hand while engaging the tradition of painting and the legacy of Modernism. https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/26658-avery-singer/
- Barbara Kruger is a contemporary American artist known for her use of bold red, white, and black type overlaid with images of cultural critique. Her work examines the stereotypes and behaviors of consumerism through the eyes of feminist discourse with jarring sophistication. https://www.artnet.com/artists/barbara-kruger/
- Betye Saar emerged as part of the Black Arts Movement and remains best known for her collage and assemblage works that challenge racial stereotypes. https://www.robertsprojectsla.com/artists/betye-saar
- Bisa Butler is an award winning African American textile artist. She is known for her vibrantly stunning larger than life sized quilted portraits that captivate viewers around the world. https://www.bisabutler.com/about-5
- Carolee Schneemann developed her approach to making art in dialogue with action painting… Fed by feminist thinking of the 1960s and 1970s, she highlighted her own physical experience and point of view in her art. https://www.moma.org/artists/7712
- Catherine Opie is known for her powerfully dynamic photography that examines the ideals and norms surrounding the culturally constructed American dream and American identity. https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/catherine-opie/featured-works
- Cecily Brown is best known for producing huge canvases covered generously with pigment and incorporating sexually explicit themes. Her work is most often compared to that of Abstract Expressionism superstar, Willem de Kooning, which Brown admired intensely. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/brown-cecily/
- Celia Paul’s art stems from a deep connection to subject matter and is quiet, contemplative and ultimately moving in its profound attention to detail and deeply-felt spirituality. https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/186-celia-paul/
- Christina Quarles is a Los Angeles-based artist, whose practice works to dismantle and question assumptions and ingrained beliefs surrounding identity and the human figure. https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/33678-christina-quarles/
- Christine Wang creates meme paintings exploring how the medium has become part of our society as reality becomes more digital. Wang sees her artworks as modern versions of still life paintings, recording the present day as they articulate viewpoints and experiences while providing commentary on our society. https://www.artsy.net/artist/christine-wang
- Cindy Sherman is one of the best-known and most important artists working today. Her decades-long performative practice of photographing herself under different guises has produced many of contemporary art’s most iconic and influential images. https://www.thebroad.org/art/cindy-sherman
- Claire Tabouret In her figurative paintings, drawings and sculptures, scrutinizes identity and takes a closer look at childhood and its enigmas, the individual isolated or within a group. https://www.alminerech.com/artists/4769-claire-tabouret
- Clare Woods is a British sculptor-turned-painter best known for large-scale, oil on aluminum works that strike a balance between observation and abstraction. https://www.artnet.com/artists/clare-woods/
- Clarissa David (L) loves to explore new materials and methods, combining loose play and careful strategy. More at: https://www.clarissa-david.com
- Dana Schutz is known for formally inventive canvases that combine figuration and abstraction to construct complex visual narratives that engage the capacity of painting to represent subjective experience. Often depicting figures in seemingly impossible, enigmatic, or invented situations, her expressive canvases convey emotions and psychological states of mind that reveal the complications, tensions, and ambiguities of contemporary life. https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/dana-schutz
- Elsa Sahal is a Paris-based sculptor known for biomorphic ceramic works that upend notions of the masculine and feminine, the erotic and abject, and the representational and abstract. https://nathaliekarg.com/artists/42-elsa-sahal/biography/
- Emma Kohlmann “I was mostly trying not to pigeonhole myself focusing on gender and focusing on fluidity. I was really focused on dismantling, whatever that meant. And a lot of that work was very abstract, but more humanoid figures…I want people to feel accepted by the work and not feel like it’s not for them. It’s for everyone. I want this inclusive feeling when you look at it.” https://www.platformart.com/features/emma-kolhmann-interview
- Erin. M. Riley lifts our most intimate moments—the ones society likes to keep out of sight—to the realm of art. The Brooklyn-based artist, a self-described “treasure weaver”, battles all forms of (body) shame and prejudice, transposing even her own sexts to the spotless walls of galleries around the world. https://www.glamcult.com/articles/the-feminist-tapestries-of-erin-m-riley/
- Faith Ringgold is an American painter, writer, mixed media sculptor, and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts. https://www.faithringgold.com
- Florine Stettheimer developed a feminine, theatrical painting style depicting her friends, family, and experiences in New York City. She made the first feminist nude self-portrait and paintings depicting controversies of race and sexual preference. https://www.moma.org/artists/5657
- Gertrude Abercrombie was a critical, under-considered fixture of mid-century American Surrealism. Well-known as a staple of the Chicago jazz scene, Abercrombie earned the epithets “queen of the bohemian artists” and the “other Gertrude,” in reference to Gertrude Stein. Her diaristic paintings were preceded by the legacy of French Surrealism and succeeded by the Chicago Imagists of the 1960s. https://karmakarma.org/artists/gertrude-abercrombie/
- Genieve Figgis is known for her modern abstraction pieces using acrylics and vibrant colors to portray her renditions of classical pieces in a contemporary way mixed in with her own touch of dark humor. https://www.composition.gallery/artist/genieve-figgis/
- Grace Weaver in her striking portrayals of the tragicomic everyday, artist Grace Weaver examines the charged social and cultural conditions that underlie self-concept, intimacy, and individual experience. https://www.jamescohan.com/artists/grace-weaver
- Hannah van Bart paints portraits, still lifes and landscapes, and cites the Dutch Golden Age artists as early inspiration to her practice. She brings together figures, interiors and exteriors as if to suggest there are no distinctions between the subjects. https://marianneboeskygallery.com/artists/65-hannah-van-bart/works/
- Hayv Kahraman is known for her multifaceted practice, which encompasses painting, performance, and sculpture. Her work addresses radicalized gender and body politics, migrant consciousness, and the marginal spaces of diasporic life, drawing from her personal history as an Iraqi émigré first to Europe and then the United States. https://jackshainman.com/artists/hayv_kahraman
- Heather Bryant (L) uses lithographs of animal imagery to create sacred stories of how the creatures in real or imaginary worlds behave. Her goal is to promote a harmony between variant entities by having diverse characters with shared visual attributes to emphasize their common experience. More at: https://heathermbryant.com
- Heidi Hahn Known for her lushly evocative compositions of melancholic figures, Hahn wholly prioritizes the female experience. This new body of work, comprised of large-scale paintings, examines bodily autonomy through the creation of personal space in the context of paint, ownership over imagery and materiality, and the representation of privacy in the midst of vulnerability. https://www.kohngallery.com/hahn
- Heidi Peelen (L) currently teaches traditional and graphic arts at Regent University and Tidewater Community College. She is chief executive of the non-profit organization Watershed Art House and works to produce community and private art events and exhibitions monthly. Her artwork stems from an extensive background in observational drawing as well as multimedia productions such as video, installation and performance. More at: https://heidipeelen.wixsite.com/mysite/work
- Helen Chadwick was a British sculptor, photographer and installation artist. In 1987, she became one of the first women artists to be nominated for the Turner Prize. Chadwick was known for “challenging stereotypical perceptions of the body in elegant yet unconventional forms. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/helen-chadwick-2253
- Jadé Fadojutimi is a composer of colour, space and environments. Movement informs her artistic practice, enabling her paintings to be conducted through the orchestrating of her studio space. Emotions and pigments are equally in flux in her work, and together they convey a deeper sense of self through vivid brush strokes and countless colours. https://jadefadojutimi.com
- Jenna Gribbon ‘s sumptuous, textural paintings hover between alluring intimacy and off-putting voyeurism. The Knoxville-born, Brooklyn-based artist paints her partner and close friends in intimate configurations, rethinking how fine art has long objectified women. https://www.artsy.net/artist/jenna-gribbon
- Jenny Saville with her depictions of the human form, transcends the boundaries of both classical figuration and modern abstraction. Oil paint, applied in heavy layers, becomes as visceral as flesh itself, each painted mark maintaining a supple, mobile life of its own.https://gagosian.com/artists/jenny-saville/
- Jesse Mockrin for the past four years, has focused on extracting details from historical European paintings, recycling these past narratives and bringing them into our present context. These old paintings and stories function as an entry point into an ongoing conversation about images, time, and gender constructs. https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/artist_to_watch/prime-focus-jesse-mockrin-57046
- Jordan Casteel creates colossal portraits of the people in her community… Rendered in vibrant hues of amber, lavender, and indigo, Casteel’s oil paintings confront traditional notions of gender and race in portraiture, with the expressed purpose of featuring those who might not otherwise be portrayed on museum walls. https://art21.org/artist/jordan-casteel/
- Judith Leyster was a central figure in the Dutch Golden Age and was overlooked by art historians for centuries. A recognized master, her lively genre scenes built upon contemporary trends with their informality and technical mastery. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/leyster-judith/
- Judith Bernstein has developed a reputation as one of the most unwaveringly provocative artists of her generation. For over 50 years, her work has been an autobiographical exploration of the connection between the political and the sexual. https://www.kasmingallery.com/artist/judith-bernstein
- Julia Rogers (L) is a sculptor who focuses on installation and performance art using glass, metal and other materials. An advocate of glass, she finds her inspiration within the molten material and excitement from her students. More at: http://www.juliacrogers.com/index.html
- Julie Heffernan is an oil painter whose lush self-portraits are drawn from the streaming images of her subconscious and filled with references to art history and her growing concern for the environment. Heffernan creates surreal, natural landscapes interspersed with human constructions, conflicts and afflictions. https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/julie-heffernan/
- Julie Mehretu creates new forms and finds unexpected resonances by drawing from the histories of art and human civilization—from Babylonian stelae to architectural sketches, from European history painting to the sites and symbols of African liberation movements. Some of Mehretu’s imagery and titles hint at their representational origins, but her work remains steadfastly abstract. https://whitney.org/exhibitions/julie-mehretu
- Käthe Kollwitz Like no other artist, Kollwitz emphatically addressed the themes of war, poverty and death in her works, but there was also a strong focus on love, protection and the pursuit of peace. https://www.kollwitz.de/en/about-us
- Kara Walker used drawing, painting, text, shadow puppetry, film, and sculpture to expose the ongoing psychological injury caused by the tragic legacy of slavery. Her work leads viewers to a critical understanding of the past while also proposing an examination of contemporary racial and gender stereotypes. https://walkerart.org/collections/artists/kara-walker
- Karen Rudd (L) is Norfolk’s manager of cultural affairs and an avid fine artist as well. Working primarily in acrylic and latex house paint on canvas her intention is not to paint depictions of nature but rather to replicate nature’s process, to create the way nature creates. More at: https://www.karenruddart.com
- Kelly Reemtsen is known for her iconic series of richly textured paintings featuring stylish contemporary women wielding the kind of powerful tools traditionally reserved for men. http://www.kellyreemtsen.com
- Kiki Smith has been known since the 1980s for her multidisciplinary work that explores embodiment and the natural world. She uses a broad variety of materials to continuously expand and evolve a body of work that includes sculpture, printmaking, photography, drawing, and textiles. https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/kiki-smith/
- Kudzanai-Violet Hwami A Zimbabwean painter at 26 years old, became the youngest artist to ever show at the Venice Biennale. Swami’s paintings draw upon her years growing up in Zimbabwe and South Africa to examine the ways we exist together and experience one another in an increasingly digital world. Hwami integrates visual fragments from a variety of sources in her canvases, including portraits, self-portraits, and images gleaned from the Internet. Elements repeat, as if one sees them through a family photo album or the scrolling feed of social media. https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2022/milk-dreams/kudzanai-violet-hwami
- Leonora Carrington shared the Surrealists’ keen interest in the unconscious mind and dream imagery. To these ideas she added her own unique blend of cultural influences, including Celtic literature, Renaissance painting, Central American folk art, medieval alchemy, and Jungian psychology. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/carrington-leonora/
- Lisa Brice is a painter whose influential body of work contests the misogynistic nature of figuration across the history of Western art. Echoing compositions of modernist stalwarts including Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, and Pablo Picasso, Brice subverts her predecessors by imbuing her women figures an historically uncommon sense of agency and self-possession. https://salon94.com/artists/lisa-brice/
- Lisa Park ‘s artistic practice is best known for its incorporation of biofeedback devices, including heart rate and brainwave sensors, which allow her to express invisible biological signals and emotions as auditory and visual representations. Through her art installations and performances, which utilize sensor technology, Park aims to explore the significance of human relationships and connections. https://www.thelisapark.com
- Lisa Yuskavage’s highly original approach to figurative painting has challenged conventional understandings of the genre and influenced subsequent generations of artists for more than 30 years. Her simultaneously bold, eccentric, exhibitionist, and introspective characters assume dual roles of subject and object, complicating the position of viewership. https://yuskavage.com/bio/
- Liza Lou is an artist who, for the past thirty years, has made sculpture, paintings, drawings and room-size environments that induce states of wonder, beginning with the groundbreaking Kitchen (1991–1996) – a solid beaded room-size environment now in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and other large scale sculptures, such as Back Yard, (1996–1999), in the collection of Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, which consists of over 250,000 handmade blades of grass made of beads. From 2005-2020 the artist lived and worked in Durban, South Africa, where she founded an art studio which included a women’s advocacy program—the first of its kind to combine social practice within an art studio setting. https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liza-lou/featured-works
- Louise Giovanelli has been drawing attention for her delicate, luminous works, which inject vitality into historical subjects from the canon of Western art. Through interconnected series, Giovanelli weaves together visual clues surrounding a specific moment or event. https://grimmgallery.com/artists/73-louise-giovanelli/
- Luchita Hurtado was born in Maiquetía, Venezuela, in 1920, …the breadth of her experimentation with unconventional techniques, materials and styles speak to the multicultural and experiential contexts that shaped her life and career. In 2019, Hurtado was listed in TIME 100’s most influential people and received the Americans for the Arts Carolyn Clark Powers Lifetime Achievement Award. https://luchitahurtado.com/en
- Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a British artist and writer acclaimed for her enigmatic portraits of fictitious people… Both familiar and mysterious, they invite viewers to project their own interpretations, and raise important questions of identity and representation. Often painted in spontaneous and instinctive bursts, her figures seem to exist outside of a specific time or place…Writing is central to Yiadom-Boakye’s artistic practice, as she has explained: ‘I write about the things I can’t paint and paint the things I can’t write about.’ https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/lynette-yiadom-boakye
- Magdalene Odundo is considered one of the premier ceramicists working today. Born in Kenya, Odundo produces ceramic objects whose beauty emanates from their voluptuous forms and shimmering surfaces. Hand- coiled and scraped smooth with a gourd, Odundo’s objects are laboriously produced. https://salon94.com/artists/magdalene-an-odundo/
- Maggi Hambling is an eccentric, larger-than-life character who doesn’t create art with the intention of pleasing an audience, or fitting into anyone else’s ideas about what art should be. Based in Suffolk, Hambling’s philosophy is that art, and in particular, painting, is in a constant state of ‘happening’: it must be allowed to come into fruition of its own accord, using the artist as a vehicle. Arguably, it’s her unique ability to create strong reactions and stoke public debate – as seen in 2020 with her notorious A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft – that makes her an interesting artist who can reinvigorate the discipline. https://artuk.org/discover/stories/maggi-hambling-a-maverick-in-life-and-public-sculpture
- Mallory Jarrell (L) manipulates images from 50’s era advertisements to old Renaissance masters, infusing rich history with today’s moronic pop-culture. More at: https://malloryjarrell.wixsite.com/thatswhatshesaidart
- Mandy El-Sayegh was born in Malaysia and lives and works in London, United Kingdom. El-Sayegh’s highly process-driven practice is rooted in an exploration of material and language. Executed in a wide range of media, including densely layered paintings, sculpture, installation, diagrams, and sound and video, El-Sayegh’s work investigates the formation and break-down of systems of order, be they bodily, linguistic, or political. https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/mandy-el-sayegh/featured-works
- Marina Abramović pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing in the participation of observers, focusing on “confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body”. In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), a non-profit foundation for performance art. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/marina-abramovic-11790
- Marisol was a Venezuelan-American sculptor born in Paris, who lived and worked in New York City. She became world-famous in the mid-1960s, but lapsed into relative obscurity within a decade. She continued to create her artworks and returned to the limelight in the early 21st century, capped by a 2014 major retrospective show organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. https://www.moma.org/artists/3774
- Marlene Dumas is widely regarded as one of the most influential painters working today. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, she has continuously probed the complexities of identity and representation in her work. https://www.marlenedumas.nl
- Mary Weatherford has become increasingly recognized as one of the leading painters of her generation, as well as one of the most astute and daring practitioners taking on the legacies of American abstraction. https://www.davidkordanskygallery.com/artist/mary-weatherford
- Mira Schor is one of the foremost feminist painters of the past fifty years. Operating in the nexus of language, painting, and feminist theory, Schor has continually imbued formalism with political urgency, and reminded viewers that written discourse and physical form are inherently linked. …She draws on multiple sources of imagery and art historical reference to inform her paintings. https://lylesandking.com/artists/mira-schor-1
- Nancy Spero is known for her continuous engagement with contemporary political, social, and cultural concerns. Spero chronicled wars and apocalyptic violence as well as articulating visions of ecstatic rebirth and the celebratory cycles of life. Her complex network of collective and individual voices was a catalyst for the creation of her figurative lexicon representing women from prehistory to the present in such epic-scale paintings and collage on paper.. https://www.moma.org/artists/5564
- Natalie Frank explores contemporary discourse on feminism, sexuality, and violence. Her gouache and chalk pastel drawings of the unsanitized Brothers Grimm tales, brings back, with Jack Zipes’ translations, aspects of incest, rape and physical violence left out of our familiar stories. https://www.rhoffmangallery.com/artists/natalie-frank
- Nicola Tyson probes those abject features of identity and embodiment that are simultaneously threatening, unnerving, revolting—and mesmerizing. She works with rich, bold palettes of acrylic paint to create visual worlds that teeter at the border of mimesis and formlessness. Upon first glance, clownishly distorted figures read as humorous and sometimes ebullient. But their whimsy belies an arresting intensity. https://www.miergallery.com/artists/nicola-tyson/works
- Nicole Eisenman One of the most important figurative painters working today, Nicole Eisenman explores the human condition in prints, paintings, drawings, and mixed-media works full of tenderness and dark humor. Influenced by Pablo Picasso, Expressionism and Impressionism, Eisenman populates their works with emotionally resonant, cartoonish figures—of themself, their friends, and imagined characters. Energetic, painterly flourishes and intense colors give heft to Eisenman’s scenes, which often focus on community and queer love. https://www.artsy.net/artist/nicole-eisenman/works-for-sale
- Nicole Harp (L) has spent most of her career as an accomplished abstract painter, balancing the functions oftext and image in her work. Harp’s work speaks to the need for change in the way humans interact with their environment. Harp shares her talent and passion for art through teaching. More at: https://www.nicoleharp.com
- Niki De Saint Phalle was a French artist best known for her sculptural female figures known as Nanas. Colorful, patterned, and crafted in a variety of shapes and sizes, these sculpted women embody the feminist spirit of de Saint Phalle’s work. https://www.artnet.com/artists/niki-de-saint-phalle/
- Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a Los Angeles-based artist and 2017 MacArthur Genius Fellow Njideka Akunyili Crosby draws upon her experience of moving from Nigeria to the United States while maintaining ties to her family in Africa and building relationships in America. The artist combines painting, drawing and transfers in her artwork. https://www.themodern.org/exhibition/4539
- Paola Pivi is an Italian multimedia artist. She has worked in artistic media including photography, sculpture and installation. Some of her works contain performance elements, at times involving live animals and people. In 1999, she received the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale. Wikipedia https://www.paolapivi.com
- Paula Rego was a Portuguese-British visual artist known particularly for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Rego’s style evolved from abstract towards representational, and she favoured pastels over oils for much of her career. Her work often reflects feminism, coloured by folk-themes from her native Portugal. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/paula-rego-1823
- Petah Coyne is a contemporary American sculptor and photographer. Since the 1980s, Coyne has received critical acclaim for using intricate, unorthodox material—trees, human hair, scrap metal, wax, silk flowers, religious statuary, and taxidermy—to create sculptures that are both precise in their attention to detail and baroque in their emotional range. https://www.galerielelong.com/artists/petah-coyne
- Phyllida Barlow has taken inspiration from her surroundings to create imposing installations that can be at once menacing and playful for more than 50 years. This British artist creates tactile, seemingly precarious sculptures that resonate with emotional intensity and the urgency of their creation. These constructions are often painted in vibrant colors and the means of their construction left visible, revealing their inexpensive, industrial materials: cardboard, fabric, plywood, polystyrene, scrim and cement. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/phyllida-barlow-ra
- Poetry Jackson (L) has a creative process that empowers artists to be inspirational leaders. Her goal is to create work that stimulates dialogue about critical issues, and builds bridges of connection and understanding. More at: https://www.poetryjackson.com
- Portia Munson is a visual artist who works in a range of mediums including photography, painting, sculpture and installation and focuses primarily on environmental and cultural themes seen from a feminist perspective. http://www.portiamunson.com/index.html
- Ruth Asawa is an American sculptor nationally recognized for her wire sculpture, public commissions, and her activism in education. Asawa was instrumental in the creation of the first public arts high school in San Francisco in 1982. https://ruthasawa.com
- Unskilled Worker is a London-based, self-taught artist who rose to prominence via her wildly successful Instagram account. Helen Downie is a London based critically-acclaimed artist, best known for her idiosyncratic and expressive style of painting. Working under the moniker of UnskilledWorker, her paintings are both intimate and evocative, mixing characters and nature with the ephemeral and fantastical. https://unskilledworker.co.uk
- Sarah Sze builds her installations and intricate sculptures from the minutiae of everyday life, imbuing mundane materials, marks, and processes with surprising significance. Combining domestic detritus and office supplies into fantastical miniatures, she builds her works, fractal-like, on an architectural scale. Often incorporating electric lights and fans, water systems, and houseplants, Sze’s installations balance whimsy with ecological themes of interconnectivity and sustainability. https://art21.org/artist/sarah-sze/
- Shara Hughes uses dizzying brushwork, vibrant colors, and shifting perspectives to make paintings that defy many of the existing conventions associated with the landscape genre. Natural motifs and patterned elements recur throughout Hughes’s pictures: snake-like trees, floating moons, distorted reflections in bodies of water, and stippled night skies appear in various permutations, synchronized with harder-to-define forms in which abstract and representational impulses co-exist in unorthodox harmony. https://www.davidkordanskygallery.com/artist/shara-hughes
- Sheila Hicks is an American artist who is known for her innovative and experimental weavings and sculptural textile art that incorporate distinctive colors, natural materials, and personal narratives. https://www.sheilahicks.com
- Simone Leigh is perhaps most known for her ‘Anatomy of Architecture’ series (2016–ongoing), which combines images of Black women with forms drawn from traditional and contemporary architecture and cultural iconography. Her references include early Egyptian terracotta pottery and 19th-century African American face jugs. https://ocula.com/artists/simone-leigh/
- Sister Mary Corita was an artist, educator, and advocate for social justice. At age 18 she entered the religious order Immaculate Heart of Mary, eventually teaching and then heading the art department at Immaculate Heart College. https://www.corita.org/about/corita
- Studio Irma was started by Dutch artist Irma de Vries. She works with modern dancers, composers, technicians, programmers, curators, designers, all kinds of people from different fields. She believes in connectivism… a theoretical framework for understanding and learning in a digital age… We take this definition offline and into our physical world. through compassion and empathy, we build a shared understanding, in our collective choice to experience art. https://www.studioirma.com/index.html
- Sue Williams painted figures that were heavily influenced by comic books and the pictorial language of advertisement. These paintings often showed domestic violence and explicit sexual content, which were mostly understood as a feminist critique of the patriarchal society and of war. Over the years, Williams sometimes rawly applied figurative scenes changed into more casual and extended compositions until they grew into almost or total abstractions, into intertwined, swirling compositions consisting of body parts, orifices, and betokened organs. https://www.presenhuber.com/artists/sue-williams#tab:slideshow
- Suzanne Valadon painted female nudes throughout her career and was one of only a few women artists take up this imagery during the first half of the 20th century. Valadon’s nude subjects also included self-portraits and men—both even more shocking subjects for a woman to paint. https://nmwa.org/art/artists/suzanne-valadon/
- Tacita Dean is a British European artist who’s focus of her subtle but ambitious work is the truth of the moment, the film as a medium, and the sensibilities of the individual. https://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/39-tacita-dean/
- Tina Modotti was an Italian-born photographer known for her skillful use of composition and shadow. Her most famous images captured the milieu of Mexico City between World War I and World War II, including portraits of artists and intellectuals such as Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera. https://www.artnet.com/artists/tina-modotti/
- Tracey Emin is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and sewn appliqué. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/tracey-emin-2590
- Tschabalala Self is a New Haven, CT based painter. “My current body of work is concerned with the iconographic significance of the Black female body in contemporary culture. My work explores the emotional, physical and psychological impact of the Black female body as icon, and is primarily devoted to examining the intersectionality of race, gender and sexuality…” https://tschabalalaself.com
- Zoe Buckman is an English multi-disciplinary artist working in sculpture, photography, embroidery and installation. Her work explores themes of feminism, mortality and equality. https://www.zoebuckman.com/work/
Also see our list of:
10 Female Artists Who Have Shaped Art History
