Faceless By Shirin Neshat

SHIRIN NESHAT
Shirin Neshat is an Iranian Photographer and videographer born in 1974 who captures female and cultural/religious stereotypes in her works. Neshat’s work is that many of her images are endowed with a sense of empowerment. Her photographs include - Hands holding hands, forming a sense of solidarity, women in the possession of weapons, subverting traditional notions of gender roles and power.
In the B&W photograph “Faceless” from the 1994 “Women of Allah” series Neshat can be seen wearing a veil holding a gun and covered in Arabic text. These are all symbols that communicate complex issues that relate to identity and are related to how the western world sees the Muslim World. The veil is symbolic of the cultural change in Iran where
women are required to wear the veil.
Most of Neshats subjects in the series are photographed holding a gun, sometimes passively, but in this case threatening and sometimes confronting with the barrel of the gun pointing directly to the camera lenses which points to the audience. The gun in the photograph symbolises power and control but also represents religious martyrdom. Being a woman in Iran freedom of speech is restricted and punishment is conflicted if rebelled.
The Arabic Ink writing across the subjects face is not always understood by Western viewers and may understand the calligraphic as an aesthetic signifier. Yet most of the texts are transcriptions of poetry and texts that are feminist in nature written by women.
Another artwork by Neshat “Speechless” is also out of the 1996, B&W ink series “Women of Allah”. In this photograph Neshat uses herself as the subject, casting a feeling of awe and power. By having the camera zoomed in on her face, it gives off a feeling of power.
The focal point in the photograph being the gun is juxtaposition. Neshat (the subject) seems to be embracing the gun, giving the feeling its part of her - a threatening feeling. But at the same time it doesn’t feel dangerous because of the conflicting emotions in her face.
The black veil in the photo represents Islamic culture and by having the veil take up half the photo, it seems like a struggle between the want for freedom and the support of religion.
Having the subjects face take up the other half of the photograph shows the emotions in the face. Neshats makes the symbol of a woman mourning is a different perspective from her other works of art because it emphasise on woman’s rights.
Shirin Neshat an outspoken, feminist and progressive artist is aware that to this day it is still too dangerous to show her post-modern work that challenges society in conservative modern-day Iran. Although but for the Western world the “Women of Allah “series has allowed less stereotypes of the Muslim community.

FRIDA KAHLO
Frida Kahlo was a female artist born in Mexico in 1907 and died in 1954.
She is known for her surreal paintings that innovated the surrealism movement of the art world. To make her artworks surreal, Kahlo would incorporate many symbols such as creatures, animals and plants. The use of symbols helped her express her feelings, thoughts and identity as a Mexican female.
Kahlo lived through traumatic events such as polio at the age of 7 and a vital car accident when she was 18. The accident left her in a great deal of pain with a broken spinal cord and broken bones all over the body. After having a total of 35 operations and being in a full body cast for over 3 months she decided to abandon the study of medicine and began to paint to occupy herself during the three months of immobilization.
The Oil on canvas artwork “Self Portrait along the Borderline between Mexico and the United States”, created in 1932, is a very symbolic painting. Kahlo can be seen standing behind two countries: Mexico and the United States. This painting is a referral to how the United States took all of Mexico's national land in 1848.
This can be seen by the symbols within the painting such as Kahlo herself, the flag she's holding, the sun & moon and the American
flag.
Kahlo standing in the middle of the two countries symbolises how she was born in Mexico, how the US stole their land and how she lived in the US for a few years. She is standing in between because she has a connection to both.
The flag that Kahlo is holding is the Mexican flag which symbolises that even though she's "in the middle" of both countries, her stronger connection is with Mexico.
The symbols of the sun and moon over Mexico are juxtaposed with the cloud of polluted smoke in America.
This is symbolising how Kahlo believed that Mexico was the better country and that they had a "real" night sky compared to the polluted fakeness of the US.
Another Oil on canvas work by Kahlo created in 1940 “Self-portrait with thorn necklace and humming bird” showed her self-expression and her exploration of identity.
Kahlo had a strong relationship to the modern art movement of surrealism and had a close study of her own personal symbolism and its reflection of her multicultural background.
In the portrait the necklace of thorns alludes to Christ’s passion, symbolism Kahlo had drawn from her catholic upbringing. The dead humming bird around her neck and the butterflies in her hair are Aztec symbols that signify the souls of dead warrior. The monkey, an omnipresent pet, which makes it appreance in eight of Kahlo’s self portraits, functions like a religious attribute and further underscores the iconic quality of the image. The cat, on the other hand seems to be more generalised symbol of death, imparting an ominous sense of doom.