I started to exhibit my work age 53 after consciously building a collection because my daughter’s art teacher said to me they had told her I was an artist. It had such an emotional effect on me as I would never have called myself an artist having gone down the corporate route because of a lack of funding and support to go to art school. Too critical of my own work and when I looked at why, it was because I was painting not what I wanted to. Sounds so silly now. But years of painting like those before me took years to undo. I finally feel free to paint and express what I can still not bring myself to always put in words. I do feel I have emerged and my life is lighter, filled with colour and playful in such a way that I have recently started to teach those with mental health issues. Who knows if I will ever make it on the art circuit but I think it’s important to evolve as one person wrote so that means keeping a practice going whatever that is and at whatever age. My friend Yeside Linney has made a great impression in her 70s she is my inspiration locally.
I am 68 and finished an art degree 9 years ago. I tried for a while to sell paintings/get exhibitions etc. I got a solo show locally and sold a few pieces but I hated the process of trying to sell my work/my self and decided that, since I have a pension, I would paint for the joy of it and stop trying to be taken seriously. I still sell the odd work but mostly I give paintings away or hang them on my own walls! It's a sheer pleasure and a liberation to explore and evolve my work without thinking about who might buy or whether it is 'contemporary' enough.
I love your attitude, Rachel. And it's so freeing when you don't have to earn a crust anymore. I feel like I'll be working for the rest of my life at this rate!
This resonated strongly. I am relatively new to the Art world, having retired from teaching English Literature 13 years ago. Yes, I am a double award Women in Art winner and shortlisted for other prizes. I am conscious that those being invited to be in Group exhibitions tend to be young artsts straight from college. Sometimes this is financially motivatedby curators/gallerists. Being an older female black artist is also a disadvantage as black artists are cease to be on trend
Thanks for sharing your experience, Yeside. It's such a common story, particularly for women. It's interesting you say that black artists are no longer on trend. Where do you live - are you American? I think in the UK there's still very much a focus in institutional art shows featuring black artists. At the Royal Academy this autumn Kerry James Marshall. In autumn 2027 Simone Leigh will have the solo spot at the RA. And there are loads of other shows coming up in 2026 at major institutions focusing on black and brown artists. I wonder whether the context is different now in the States?
I feel 'seen' by your article Victoria. I was 54 when I started to sculpt (after a 25 yr career as a memorial-carver, telling other people's stories in stone but not my own). Traditionally women tend to take longer to 'find themselves' - or more accurately- to stop suppressing themselves in favour of family/societal expectations. It was the #MeToo Movement that gave me my voice in 2018.
Speaking up about my past opened me up creatively too, giving rise to my raw figurative sculptures. I've turned a corner again with my current project Shame Ends Here - an interdisciplinary installation using police data and survivor testimonies from around the world. Art can speak loudly when words fail, art can reach people and change their minds. In these troubled times art has a strong role to play.Women dropped the baton for a while, thinking equality was assured and only a matter of time, but look where that got us... Women's rights and well-being is once again a debatable issue. In art, as in life, we must step up and speak out. And post-menopausal women are good at telling it like it is, Galleries, take note.
Shame Ends Here will have its first showing on Sunday 1 February at CityScreen PictureHouse in York, UK.
The exhibition comprises several parts; a large map of North Yorkshire covered with a thick red mess of rubber stamped letters, each recording a reported incident of S/A over the course of one year (using publicly available police data with careful attention to GDPR).
Accompanying the map is a collection of 60+ personal accounts that were contributed to the project in the wake of our map-marking event, bound into a handmade book. The testimonies are unrelated to the events recorded on the map but give an important insight into the lived experience.
A short film will also be exhibited showing the relentless repetitive motion and sounds of our map-marking process, overlayed with spoken extracts from this book. Finally there will be an accompanying booklet presenting the stark statistics, and the research that underpins my project, interwoven with contributors' reflections that give life to the impersonal data. In total it makes for a striking visual experience that I hope will initiate many important conversations.
The process that we used to record, analyse and present the data can be applied to any publicly available police accounts of reported crime...Potentially this project could extend far beyond just North Yorkshire, mapping the true extent of sex-based violence throughout all regions...
Hi Lucy, what a powerful exhibition with visual and sound. I love the different formats that will speak to different viewers. I always appreciate a short film accompanying the visual experience reinforcing the message. I agree that this is a much needed call for change, if not way overdue. Thank you for sharing!!
Thanks for this Lucy. I absolutely agree with you about post-menopausal women not giving a f**k and telling it like it is. I suspect there are a lot more female artists who start their art careers later in life than men. Although it would be interesting to know what the stats are on that. Men also have societal pressures to be breadwinners and unless you hit the big time as an artist (i.e. leading commercial gallery representation), it's really hard to be financially successful as an artist. Your current project sounds brilliant, looking forward to hearing more about it.
Agh! This is my story! The funny part is I’m in a constant inner dialogue with myself over ‘not complaining’ because all of my basic needs (and then some) are met by my current life structure. But I’d just like to be taken seriously the way a 25 year old would. Ha!
Women are always told not to complain, and we absorb that message. You have every right to be annoyed about not being taken seriously as an artist. But then this is the problem with the invisibility of older women, as Victoria Smith makes so clear in her book Hags. Women don't get taken seriously as soon as they are past their fertile years.
I don’t have a name to offer up, but I also came back to art in my late 40s. My parents sent me to art school around the age of 11 in Vietnam, I continued to study art in high school after we moved to America and earned a scholarship at a local college. My parents loathed the fact that we were receiving government support in the first few years so studying art naturally created tension in our family so I stopped. I went on a long detour but kept up with painting and taking classes occasionally and eventually started sharing my work publicly two years ago. I applied to quite a few opportunities in the first year, but decided later on just focus on creating. One thing at the time at this point for me. Rose Hilton’s work is so lovely and arresting. Chicago should keep her exhibition. You never know whom she’ll inspire amidst the debate. Thank you for your post today.
Interesting that parental pressure was the factor that made you stop making art. I'm sorry to hear that Ann, but it sounds like your parents had different priorities and concerns as new immigrants to the USA. As young people we absorb the messages of our parents and often follow their wishes when we don't have experience or strong convictions as young people. I certainly did. I am very glad you've come back to it though -- you've made our world richer with your art.
I love Rose Hilton's work too. She's not a household name but she succeeded as an older female artist.
Shortly after this post, I went to see the comedian Dave Chappell when he came in DC. He talked the criticism he received recently for performing in Saudi Arabia due to the country’s human rights record. Given where we’re at in America, he said there’re things better said somewhere else. To me it’s come down to the artists’ choice and they can learn from or make any adjustments when they receive feedback as they see fit.
Not sure if you have heard about the freedom of speech issues we are having over here in the UK. People have to be careful what they say as you can get arrested and imprisoned for expressing 'thoughtcrimes'. Sounds extreme but many people have been cancelled, and not just celebs.
We have comedians here moving to the States so that they can create art freely. Graham Linehan is an example -- a gender critical writer who was arrested at the airport for a tweet when he came back to London from the States recently. Whatever people think of his views, whether you agree or disagree, I think we need be free to say what we think, but also be open to discussion and challenge.
Gallery Companions might be interested in reading ‘ Late Calls: A report on a pilot lab for early career older artists’ by Francois Matarasso published in 2017, available on the Luminatescotland.org website. This paper reports on a very small sample of older artists and their claims and experiences of being and becoming older artists. I have not been able to find a follow up with a larger sample which may indicate the absence or irrelevance of the topic for arts organisations in the UK countries.
For myself, I think the more stimulating issue is not so much the agency or lack of it for returning or new older artists, but the uncovering of approaches and attitudes in their art making between younger and older generations of artists. I believe
one ‘s work comes out of formative experiences at particular times in one’s life and a comparison between an artist in their 70’s/ 80’s and those in their 40’s/50’s say and then 30’s/20’s, could be fascinating.
Thanks for the link to the study from 2017, Martin, I'll have a read.
I really like this idea of a comparison between artists' approaches and attitudes at different times of their life. I do wonder though with artists returning/starting art later in life whether their approach to making is very different from someone the same age who has been practicing all throughout their lives. Whenever you start you're surely learning to develop your oeuvre, and that takes time whether you're in your 20s or 60s. The later approaches and themes of Sonia Boyce's work, for example, are very different from her earlier work -- she's now essentially a performance artist interested in music and other subjects but in her early career she was a figurative painter interested in expressing her black British experience. There's a thread running through her body of work but it has morphed enormously over the passage of time.
Thank you for raising the topic. I feel seen in this article. I am a Dutch born artist who arrived in London in my early twenties. I did see myself as an emerging artist. I had some early successes with my work after finishing my BA, exhibitions and gallery representation, but found the pressure too high. The experience knocked my confidence and all my time was spent trying to make ends meet in London. Years later I did get another chance when accepted at the Royal College of Art, where I graduated from an MA panting aged 31. Again some opportunities came from that but it dried up eventually as I had to work many jobs to pay rent, then let myself fall into a traditional relationship where I became the caregiver to my husband and our two children, up to today. I now find myself suddenly at age 50 without having been able to continue my practice, which I feel as a pain every day. The limiting feelings of responsibility for others and self sacrifice have debilitated me and ongoing money issues make it seemingly impossible to carve time. it’s so important to make the shift in prioritising yourself. I did find an opportunity for artists who try to get back into their practice, or refocus after having had a practice or who are starting later in life. It’s a 6 week course through hARTslane community art centre in Deptford. It has no age limit and it’s particularly focused on women.
Thanks for your reply, Marenka. I just feel like this is such a familiar story for so many people, especially women artists. Plus the pressure to make money to live is so enormous, especially if you're not independently wealthy, and it can be the death knell for many artists. The 6-week course sounds good - have you done it and if so was it helpful? Self-belief is so important in this business, there's a sense that if you've not 'made it' by a certain age then you're not successful, whatever success looks like. I feel that pressure too when I look around at my peers and other people our age, but I really try to resist thinking 'what have I achieved?'. I'm staring at a future with no pension or job security! But then I think 'you're only 48, it's not a race'. Do what you most want to do, and carve out time for it without guilt.
Ooh, thanks for introducing me to Isabella Ducrot! I love her textiles-based work, and how she talks about what she wants to do with her art. Wonderful.
Rose Wylie is an example but as with Rose Wilton they were partners of established male artists and perhaps their networks. Rose Wylie is the catalyst for me realising I could return to painting as an older artist and excavate the buried artist in myself. I started painting again 8 years ago at 61( the hyper male environment of painting dept in art schools in the mid seventies was a disgrace , and as you mention life also intervenes ) and it was hard many levels. I achieved a lifelong dream of going to RCA painting ( as Rose Wylie did) and graduated in 2024. I have observed that the 'art world' sees contemporary artists as people under 30 and some collectors have said they only collect young female artists. As an older woman that immediately erases me from many of the conversations. The Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation has an upper age limit of 40 and many critics, curators and gatekeepers continually equate youth with emerging artists. I have been a private views and have been asked if I am the artist's mother.
Charlotte your experience of the art world is such a familiar one. The misogyny of the art college experience in the 1970s and then the exclusion by critics, curators and gatekeepers by age in today's art world. It just feels like such a tragic waste of talent. There's something particular about the barriers that women artists face later in life, although I'm not saying it doesn't happen for older men too. The artist's mother comment that you received is just indicative of that attitude.
I didn't make the connection between Rose Hilton and her husband's network but I'm sure you're right actually, as with Rose Wylie. It gave them an advantage in the art world that others starting out don't necessarily have.
Yes, especially as a woman. I live in Switzerland - and as a female artist you are only painting because you need a hobby... its really hard to get taken seriously, especially if you are younger. I enrolled in a private art school the minute my daughter went to kindergarten, and have invested my time in learning as much as I can and practicing my craft as much as possible. This year is my first autumn with lots of exhibitions - though none of them in an actual art gallery! I applied to over 30 residencies, awards etc last year, and have applied for 26 so far this year... I live in hope. You have to, its all there is...
Thanks for your reply Sibylle. You nailed it with 'as a female artist you are only painting because you need a hobby'. It's so true of many attitudes towards women artists. It makes you wonder how much these attitudes have really moved on since the 19th century!
I'm so glad to hear about your exhibition success, even if not in actual galleries. Doesn't matter, and this is where we need to change thinking about spaces where art is shown and what success as an artist looks like. I think it's about getting your work out there and real people actually seeing it, particularly as only a small proportion of people go to galleries. You're reaching a wider audience.
I came back to art later, after pragmatism and chronic illness took me down a few other paths. And then, suddenly, art was all that mattered. And yes, it’s bloody hard. The art world seems to be geared almost entirely towards younger artists, with a high percentage of residencies and prizes having a cut-off at 25-30. I was also told at an open where I was exhibiting recently that mentorships were really there for younger artists! How depressing, *especially* as a woman…
So true, Zoe, completely depressing, and such a wasted opportunity to engage with artists when the gatekeepers insist on youth. Whispering this but... surely a lifetime of experience produces more interesting art?
I started to exhibit my work age 53 after consciously building a collection because my daughter’s art teacher said to me they had told her I was an artist. It had such an emotional effect on me as I would never have called myself an artist having gone down the corporate route because of a lack of funding and support to go to art school. Too critical of my own work and when I looked at why, it was because I was painting not what I wanted to. Sounds so silly now. But years of painting like those before me took years to undo. I finally feel free to paint and express what I can still not bring myself to always put in words. I do feel I have emerged and my life is lighter, filled with colour and playful in such a way that I have recently started to teach those with mental health issues. Who knows if I will ever make it on the art circuit but I think it’s important to evolve as one person wrote so that means keeping a practice going whatever that is and at whatever age. My friend Yeside Linney has made a great impression in her 70s she is my inspiration locally.
https://www.yeside.com
And I love Judy Chicago! She rocks!
I am 68 and finished an art degree 9 years ago. I tried for a while to sell paintings/get exhibitions etc. I got a solo show locally and sold a few pieces but I hated the process of trying to sell my work/my self and decided that, since I have a pension, I would paint for the joy of it and stop trying to be taken seriously. I still sell the odd work but mostly I give paintings away or hang them on my own walls! It's a sheer pleasure and a liberation to explore and evolve my work without thinking about who might buy or whether it is 'contemporary' enough.
What a joyous way to create, Rachel.
I love your attitude, Rachel. And it's so freeing when you don't have to earn a crust anymore. I feel like I'll be working for the rest of my life at this rate!
This resonated strongly. I am relatively new to the Art world, having retired from teaching English Literature 13 years ago. Yes, I am a double award Women in Art winner and shortlisted for other prizes. I am conscious that those being invited to be in Group exhibitions tend to be young artsts straight from college. Sometimes this is financially motivatedby curators/gallerists. Being an older female black artist is also a disadvantage as black artists are cease to be on trend
Thanks for sharing your experience, Yeside. It's such a common story, particularly for women. It's interesting you say that black artists are no longer on trend. Where do you live - are you American? I think in the UK there's still very much a focus in institutional art shows featuring black artists. At the Royal Academy this autumn Kerry James Marshall. In autumn 2027 Simone Leigh will have the solo spot at the RA. And there are loads of other shows coming up in 2026 at major institutions focusing on black and brown artists. I wonder whether the context is different now in the States?
I feel 'seen' by your article Victoria. I was 54 when I started to sculpt (after a 25 yr career as a memorial-carver, telling other people's stories in stone but not my own). Traditionally women tend to take longer to 'find themselves' - or more accurately- to stop suppressing themselves in favour of family/societal expectations. It was the #MeToo Movement that gave me my voice in 2018.
Speaking up about my past opened me up creatively too, giving rise to my raw figurative sculptures. I've turned a corner again with my current project Shame Ends Here - an interdisciplinary installation using police data and survivor testimonies from around the world. Art can speak loudly when words fail, art can reach people and change their minds. In these troubled times art has a strong role to play.Women dropped the baton for a while, thinking equality was assured and only a matter of time, but look where that got us... Women's rights and well-being is once again a debatable issue. In art, as in life, we must step up and speak out. And post-menopausal women are good at telling it like it is, Galleries, take note.
I’d love to hear more about your project Shame Ends Here too, Lucy.
Thank you so much Ann -
Shame Ends Here will have its first showing on Sunday 1 February at CityScreen PictureHouse in York, UK.
The exhibition comprises several parts; a large map of North Yorkshire covered with a thick red mess of rubber stamped letters, each recording a reported incident of S/A over the course of one year (using publicly available police data with careful attention to GDPR).
Accompanying the map is a collection of 60+ personal accounts that were contributed to the project in the wake of our map-marking event, bound into a handmade book. The testimonies are unrelated to the events recorded on the map but give an important insight into the lived experience.
A short film will also be exhibited showing the relentless repetitive motion and sounds of our map-marking process, overlayed with spoken extracts from this book. Finally there will be an accompanying booklet presenting the stark statistics, and the research that underpins my project, interwoven with contributors' reflections that give life to the impersonal data. In total it makes for a striking visual experience that I hope will initiate many important conversations.
The process that we used to record, analyse and present the data can be applied to any publicly available police accounts of reported crime...Potentially this project could extend far beyond just North Yorkshire, mapping the true extent of sex-based violence throughout all regions...
A powerful and much needed call for change.
Hi Lucy, what a powerful exhibition with visual and sound. I love the different formats that will speak to different viewers. I always appreciate a short film accompanying the visual experience reinforcing the message. I agree that this is a much needed call for change, if not way overdue. Thank you for sharing!!
Thanks for this Lucy. I absolutely agree with you about post-menopausal women not giving a f**k and telling it like it is. I suspect there are a lot more female artists who start their art careers later in life than men. Although it would be interesting to know what the stats are on that. Men also have societal pressures to be breadwinners and unless you hit the big time as an artist (i.e. leading commercial gallery representation), it's really hard to be financially successful as an artist. Your current project sounds brilliant, looking forward to hearing more about it.
Agh! This is my story! The funny part is I’m in a constant inner dialogue with myself over ‘not complaining’ because all of my basic needs (and then some) are met by my current life structure. But I’d just like to be taken seriously the way a 25 year old would. Ha!
Women are always told not to complain, and we absorb that message. You have every right to be annoyed about not being taken seriously as an artist. But then this is the problem with the invisibility of older women, as Victoria Smith makes so clear in her book Hags. Women don't get taken seriously as soon as they are past their fertile years.
Conversely!
I recently received an email from the Pilgrm Hotel in London advertising their Autumn Exhibition. "A celebration of New & Emerging Artists".
Two of the artists in the show have been dead for at least 10 years!
https://thepilgrm.com/article/the-autumn-exhibition-at-the-pilgrm
Ha! what a joke
I don’t have a name to offer up, but I also came back to art in my late 40s. My parents sent me to art school around the age of 11 in Vietnam, I continued to study art in high school after we moved to America and earned a scholarship at a local college. My parents loathed the fact that we were receiving government support in the first few years so studying art naturally created tension in our family so I stopped. I went on a long detour but kept up with painting and taking classes occasionally and eventually started sharing my work publicly two years ago. I applied to quite a few opportunities in the first year, but decided later on just focus on creating. One thing at the time at this point for me. Rose Hilton’s work is so lovely and arresting. Chicago should keep her exhibition. You never know whom she’ll inspire amidst the debate. Thank you for your post today.
Interesting that parental pressure was the factor that made you stop making art. I'm sorry to hear that Ann, but it sounds like your parents had different priorities and concerns as new immigrants to the USA. As young people we absorb the messages of our parents and often follow their wishes when we don't have experience or strong convictions as young people. I certainly did. I am very glad you've come back to it though -- you've made our world richer with your art.
I love Rose Hilton's work too. She's not a household name but she succeeded as an older female artist.
Hi Victoria,
Shortly after this post, I went to see the comedian Dave Chappell when he came in DC. He talked the criticism he received recently for performing in Saudi Arabia due to the country’s human rights record. Given where we’re at in America, he said there’re things better said somewhere else. To me it’s come down to the artists’ choice and they can learn from or make any adjustments when they receive feedback as they see fit.
Not sure if you have heard about the freedom of speech issues we are having over here in the UK. People have to be careful what they say as you can get arrested and imprisoned for expressing 'thoughtcrimes'. Sounds extreme but many people have been cancelled, and not just celebs.
We have comedians here moving to the States so that they can create art freely. Graham Linehan is an example -- a gender critical writer who was arrested at the airport for a tweet when he came back to London from the States recently. Whatever people think of his views, whether you agree or disagree, I think we need be free to say what we think, but also be open to discussion and challenge.
Gallery Companions might be interested in reading ‘ Late Calls: A report on a pilot lab for early career older artists’ by Francois Matarasso published in 2017, available on the Luminatescotland.org website. This paper reports on a very small sample of older artists and their claims and experiences of being and becoming older artists. I have not been able to find a follow up with a larger sample which may indicate the absence or irrelevance of the topic for arts organisations in the UK countries.
For myself, I think the more stimulating issue is not so much the agency or lack of it for returning or new older artists, but the uncovering of approaches and attitudes in their art making between younger and older generations of artists. I believe
one ‘s work comes out of formative experiences at particular times in one’s life and a comparison between an artist in their 70’s/ 80’s and those in their 40’s/50’s say and then 30’s/20’s, could be fascinating.
Thanks for the link to the study from 2017, Martin, I'll have a read.
I really like this idea of a comparison between artists' approaches and attitudes at different times of their life. I do wonder though with artists returning/starting art later in life whether their approach to making is very different from someone the same age who has been practicing all throughout their lives. Whenever you start you're surely learning to develop your oeuvre, and that takes time whether you're in your 20s or 60s. The later approaches and themes of Sonia Boyce's work, for example, are very different from her earlier work -- she's now essentially a performance artist interested in music and other subjects but in her early career she was a figurative painter interested in expressing her black British experience. There's a thread running through her body of work but it has morphed enormously over the passage of time.
Thank you for raising the topic. I feel seen in this article. I am a Dutch born artist who arrived in London in my early twenties. I did see myself as an emerging artist. I had some early successes with my work after finishing my BA, exhibitions and gallery representation, but found the pressure too high. The experience knocked my confidence and all my time was spent trying to make ends meet in London. Years later I did get another chance when accepted at the Royal College of Art, where I graduated from an MA panting aged 31. Again some opportunities came from that but it dried up eventually as I had to work many jobs to pay rent, then let myself fall into a traditional relationship where I became the caregiver to my husband and our two children, up to today. I now find myself suddenly at age 50 without having been able to continue my practice, which I feel as a pain every day. The limiting feelings of responsibility for others and self sacrifice have debilitated me and ongoing money issues make it seemingly impossible to carve time. it’s so important to make the shift in prioritising yourself. I did find an opportunity for artists who try to get back into their practice, or refocus after having had a practice or who are starting later in life. It’s a 6 week course through hARTslane community art centre in Deptford. It has no age limit and it’s particularly focused on women.
Thanks for your reply, Marenka. I just feel like this is such a familiar story for so many people, especially women artists. Plus the pressure to make money to live is so enormous, especially if you're not independently wealthy, and it can be the death knell for many artists. The 6-week course sounds good - have you done it and if so was it helpful? Self-belief is so important in this business, there's a sense that if you've not 'made it' by a certain age then you're not successful, whatever success looks like. I feel that pressure too when I look around at my peers and other people our age, but I really try to resist thinking 'what have I achieved?'. I'm staring at a future with no pension or job security! But then I think 'you're only 48, it's not a race'. Do what you most want to do, and carve out time for it without guilt.
Isabella Ducrot is another older artist
Ooh, thanks for introducing me to Isabella Ducrot! I love her textiles-based work, and how she talks about what she wants to do with her art. Wonderful.
Rose Wylie is an example but as with Rose Wilton they were partners of established male artists and perhaps their networks. Rose Wylie is the catalyst for me realising I could return to painting as an older artist and excavate the buried artist in myself. I started painting again 8 years ago at 61( the hyper male environment of painting dept in art schools in the mid seventies was a disgrace , and as you mention life also intervenes ) and it was hard many levels. I achieved a lifelong dream of going to RCA painting ( as Rose Wylie did) and graduated in 2024. I have observed that the 'art world' sees contemporary artists as people under 30 and some collectors have said they only collect young female artists. As an older woman that immediately erases me from many of the conversations. The Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation has an upper age limit of 40 and many critics, curators and gatekeepers continually equate youth with emerging artists. I have been a private views and have been asked if I am the artist's mother.
Charlotte your experience of the art world is such a familiar one. The misogyny of the art college experience in the 1970s and then the exclusion by critics, curators and gatekeepers by age in today's art world. It just feels like such a tragic waste of talent. There's something particular about the barriers that women artists face later in life, although I'm not saying it doesn't happen for older men too. The artist's mother comment that you received is just indicative of that attitude.
I didn't make the connection between Rose Hilton and her husband's network but I'm sure you're right actually, as with Rose Wylie. It gave them an advantage in the art world that others starting out don't necessarily have.
Yes, especially as a woman. I live in Switzerland - and as a female artist you are only painting because you need a hobby... its really hard to get taken seriously, especially if you are younger. I enrolled in a private art school the minute my daughter went to kindergarten, and have invested my time in learning as much as I can and practicing my craft as much as possible. This year is my first autumn with lots of exhibitions - though none of them in an actual art gallery! I applied to over 30 residencies, awards etc last year, and have applied for 26 so far this year... I live in hope. You have to, its all there is...
Thanks for your reply Sibylle. You nailed it with 'as a female artist you are only painting because you need a hobby'. It's so true of many attitudes towards women artists. It makes you wonder how much these attitudes have really moved on since the 19th century!
I'm so glad to hear about your exhibition success, even if not in actual galleries. Doesn't matter, and this is where we need to change thinking about spaces where art is shown and what success as an artist looks like. I think it's about getting your work out there and real people actually seeing it, particularly as only a small proportion of people go to galleries. You're reaching a wider audience.
I came back to art later, after pragmatism and chronic illness took me down a few other paths. And then, suddenly, art was all that mattered. And yes, it’s bloody hard. The art world seems to be geared almost entirely towards younger artists, with a high percentage of residencies and prizes having a cut-off at 25-30. I was also told at an open where I was exhibiting recently that mentorships were really there for younger artists! How depressing, *especially* as a woman…
So true, Zoe, completely depressing, and such a wasted opportunity to engage with artists when the gatekeepers insist on youth. Whispering this but... surely a lifetime of experience produces more interesting art?
100%!!