Gendered (Hi)stories: Female Artists and Dynamics in the Art of Barkcloth Painting

This chapter focuses on women and their artwork. The work of women artists may be constrained by various forces, limiting their mobility and also their ability to give voice to their work. In Melanesian societies that have traditionally been dominated by male decision-making and male representations, women have often been prohibited from speaking on behalf of themselves, their families, and the larger community or representing these concerns in art. As I will show, these restraints affect their ability to participate in national and international art settings. In addition, women’s art was less accessible to early collectors (Hermkens 2007a: 9-12,18), and was often classified as non-art by collectors, anthropologists and the global art market. As a result, women’s work has become to a large extent invisible.