Betty Tompkins – Women Words

Betty Tompkins is regarded as one of the pioneers of feminist art in the 1960’s. She is primarily known for her photorealistic Fuck Paintings in which she equalizes both sexes by showing a close up of the genitalia.

In her more recent work she integrates stereotypical images of women in the form of words, these can be affectionate, offensive or denigrating. Tompkins gets inspiration for these written descriptions out of existing quotes from popular culture, political debates and an email request in which she asked to describe women in a word or a sentence. The works in her upcoming show borrow such words from testimonies and polemics surrounding the #MeToo movement, with which Tompkins has been strongly implicated through her work.