Cecilia Sikström «

Women are not allowed to watch as much as men do, Griselda Pollock wrote. To see, stare, scrutinize, look, take possession of are central topics in the feminist art research. The discussion about the power of the eye is crucial and the question that is asked is who takes the right to look at whom?

In her work Cecilia Sikström focuses on posing and the look of the eye. With strong roots in the traditions of painting she is a sensitive user of colours and the history of art speaks through her work. There are numerous links to her predecessors. She picks an apple painted by Cranach, borrows a hand from Munch or a face from Picasso. It is a long, slow process always founded on existing work; a photograph or a painting which gives her a reason to continue her own work.

First and foremost she depicts the classical icons of femininity, but they are not portraits, but rather paraphrases which invite identification and projection. In the centre of her exploration of the characteristics of the female ego you find mythical women like Venus, Marie Antoinette, Marilyn Monroe, Edith Södergran and anonymous girls from French picture cards. Risqué and ambiguous they perform in the masquerade of femininity which walks on a tight rope across the chasm that separates the object from the subject. Cecilia Sikström exposes her women and shows them off in a bold way. The look of their eyes shifts from one point to another and with one eye closed and the other wide open they might be one of the sighted or one of those being seen. This becomes obvious in two of her latest works where Marlene Dietrich and Frida Kahlo are two identities put to the test. Marlene turns her eyes towards her persecutors and like the role person on the screen she is exposed to the spectators who freely can use her as a subject for their imagination. It is clear that Frida Kahlo poses for her audience but she returns our gaze and claims the right to regard her spectators herself. She both sees and is being seen and therefore she comes out on top in the struggle for the right to define oneself.

TRANSLATION OF A PRESENTATION IN SWEDISH BY ANNA GUNNERT

Biography

Selected Solo Exhibitions in Sweden

Selected Group Exhibitions

"Northern Lights", Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida, U.S.A.
Sweden Art Project 2001, Lifestyle, Contemporary Art & Design, Kortrijk, Brussels VIII, Sweden

Selected Public Collections

Grants

Enjoy Scandinavian Art

Cecilia Sikström - The Artist of the Quarter from June until August 2001

We followed Cecilia Sikström when she made two silk-screen prints at the print workshop "LITO+SCREEN" in Stockholm.