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| Enchanted Woman |
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| Dora Maar/man ray – the years lie in wait for you (1936) |
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| Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife |
 Dora Maar 1936 - Man Ray |
The name of my collage is Enchanted Woman. I named my collage this way because it is inspired by the enchanted rose in Beauty and the Beast, that the beast kept protected and secluded to ensure its safety and preservation. I utilized a picture of myself to represent the image of a woman trapped, and I drew a glass cover to represent society’s preservation of the “ideal” woman. “Role-playing and the nature of identity; sexual and cultural stereotypes; the pressure to conform to the images of perfection promulgated through television, film, and advertising” (Hoban 2012). Throughout the years, women have been forced to act and look the way society considers to be appropriate in that given time. Women are consistently forced to look as satisfying as possible for the male gaze, regardless of their opinions, feelings, and ideas. Slowly, however, women began to take control of their image in the media, by utilizing the media to their advantage rather than as an enforcer of patriarchal ideas. “In the politicized environment of the 1960s, many artists employed performance to address emerging social concerns. For feminist artists in particular, using their body in live performance proved effective in challenging historical representations of women, made mostly by male artists for male patrons” (Khan Academy Performance Art An Introduction).
In my self portrait collage, I included myself trapped in the glass with the rose because I hope to show how the image of women, like the enchanted rose, is forcefully kept and preserved, but still begins to fall apart over time. I portrayed the glass cover beginning to shatter, because I wanted to demonstrate that throughout the years, patriarchy has begun to crumble. I believe that contemporary media has allowed everyone, not just women, to see the extreme limitations under which women are forced to abide, and has demonstrated the power women can hold for themselves, individually, and as the protagonists of their own story. "She mirrored my state of mind at the time, a woman artist who was tired of all the bravado of the male-dominated art world” (Hoban 2012).
My collage was inspired by Dona Maar, who utilized collage and photomontage in her artwork, and Hannah Hoch who utilized collage to include political statements in her art. I added a watercolor wash to the glass cover, and I added a physical rose next to the picture of me to give the collage dimension. I also added cardstock paper to the upper background to demonstrate the forced structure society has continuously had throughout the years, as well as to add texture to the collage. The books that the glass cover rests upon represent the patriarchy foundation that has continued enforcing these beliefs over the years. However, the foundation is starting to fall apart, causing the image of the ideal woman to endanger. I believe that today, the media continues to promote the destruction of patriarchy, which attempts to keep both men and women's allowed actions within unfair boundaries. Simply put, the question at stake for visual culture is, then, how to see the world. More precisely, it involves how to see the world in a time of dynamic change and vastly expanded quantities of imagery, implying many different points of view. The world we live in now is not the same as it was just five years ago." Mirzoeff, Nicholas. How to See the World (p. 12). I believe that today, the media is a way for everyone to express themselves as they wish, with a disregard of societal standards and limitations.
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