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Curator
Dr. Shir Aloni Yaari
Artist
Marcelle Hanselaar
Venue
Museum on the Seam
Opening Event
Thursday 14.3.2024 (at 19:00)
What captivated Marcelle Hanselaar’s imagination was the fierce independence of her characters: Eve, Judith, Jezebel, Delilah, Lilith, and others.
Having been exposed to what she describes as their feisty and even subversive personalities in various artistic and cultural representations, the Jewish women she shows in Rebel Women from the Apocrypha are all rebelling against a patriarchal order that is far from dead.
The fifteen stories chosen by Hanselaar as the catalyst for her new series have their origin in the Judaeo-Christian biblical tradition, but she does not come to them from a faith background. And the artist does not argue that these rebellious women are all ‘good’ heroines, nor that they are always (although frequently) just and vindicable as victims-turned-avengers.
In the artist’s vivid portrayals they are all, however, brazenly, “on top”: commanding their own sexuality, agency, position, and plot. Through a forceful blend of expressive characterisation, dark humor, and idiosyncratic style that draws inspiration from such print masters and storytellers as Francisco Goya and Paula Rego, Hanselaar presents us with a fresh take on these age-old myths that both describes the engrained vilification and demonization of women in Western culture, and defiantly reclaims their unruly power.
Hanselaar defines the word apocrypha broadly, adding her own ideas as an interpreter of these narratives, bringing these stories to life for a predominantly secular audience in the early decades of the 21st century CE.
Artwork from Top to Bottom
Marcelle Hanselaar, Delilah, 2022
Marcelle Hanselaar, Eve, 2022
Marcelle Hanselaar, Sara, 2022