'Woman's Show' at the Project Arts Centre Dublin is an exhibition where all of the work on display has been created by female artists.
One of the organisers of the ‘Woman's Show at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin, Helen Comerford explains why women artists need to have a separate art show.
Women by being different biologically and socially must produce different art to men if art comes from the inside as I believe it must. Women tend to work from the inside out, they tend to use their whole life experience, possibly more than men.
Journalist and photographer Rosita Sweetman considers the exhibition to be both interesting and of a high standard.
Having an all female show draws attention to the discrimination faced by women artists. While women account for half of the students graduating from art colleges, they do not equally represent in exhibitions. Not one woman's work was hung in ROSC77 and only 9 per cent of the exhibitors in the 76 Living Art Exhibition were women.
For every 10 paintings you've only one by a woman.
Sweetman is convinced the government need to produce a state policy about the arts where employment opportunities across a whole range of jobs for working artists and creative artistic people are created.
So you can have dignity working as an artist, or you can simply work in an artistic field applying artistic techniques to anything form industrial design to photography.
The existence of the Kilkenny Design Centre does not suffice, what is needed is
Teachers in vocational and secondary schools who will train people in a whole range of artistic design who can then go on to further education linked to jobs, not linked to some airy fairy thing.
This episode of ‘PM’ was broadcast on 17 May 1978. The reporter is Áine O’Connor.
