Join us for a Pop Exhibition featuring the work of Newton Press former employee and Northumbria University’s Painting Fellow, Ellen Ranson.
“Paintings are granted different levels of prominence and credibility within a gallery. Gallery and museum spaces have been typically dominated with white male artists’ representations of the female figure. They decorate both physical spaces and the art historical canon as embodiments of fears and desires central to the patriarchy. Alongside LGBTQ+ and ethnic minorities, their image or the images of which are elevated in history become distorted through this very narrow perspective. This feeds the viewer: stereotyped, disempowered and tokenised images of these ‘others’.
Abstract Expressionism is emblematic of these issues, whereby female artists’ of the era were marginalised and disregarded, whilst male artists’ rose to prominence. This blueprint can be applicable to contemporary patriarchal power structures.
Alongside formal explorations, my work aims to perform the arrogance and ego associated with the Abstract Expressionist male painter archetype.
How do these historical issues filter into the contemporary gendering of abstract painters?”
Preview will be Friday 8th February at 7.30pm. Exhibition runs until 22nd and is open 12-4pm (closed Wednesdays) or by appointment via info@parapluieart.com.
The exhibition is located at: 2 Northumberland Place, North Shields, NE30 1QP

Ellen 2 Ellen 1