Women Trauma & Visual Expression

About this book

WOMEN TRAUMA & VISUAL EXPRESSION explores the hows and whys of women artists visual expressions of personal cultural and collective trauma. Amy Stacey Curtis compares the lives and work of nine women artists (four from our past--Artemisia Gentileschi Kaethe Kollwitz Frida Kahlo and Eva Hesse--and five contemporaries including Curtis herself from Chicago Washington State San Francisco New Jersey and Maine). Drawing from extensive research ambitious surveys interviews and personal experience Curtis discusses the anatomy of trauma the history of womens trauma research the artists work process and connection to audience traumas content symbols patterns and archetypes the stigma of trauma and "trauma art " and the collective visual manifestation of coping mechanisms used to survive trauma.