Madelynn Green

 B. 1993 in Milwaukee, USA

Lives and works in Brooklyn

MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins

 My work and research explore how women are abstractly depicted in art and broader visual culture. I examine the persistence of the “woman object” throughout art history and society, and I am drawn to the complex roles women are expected to embody. My practice is informed by my engagement with activities such as weightlifting, ballet, figure skating, and dance, pursuits often associated with elegance yet which demand self-objectification and impose real physical risk, contortion, and pain. I am interested in how surreal, uncanny representations of women shape our perceptions of ourselves and others.

This series began in 2020 when I began painting mannequins from beauty supply stores, reflecting on the objectification of women in both art history and daily life. Painting, for me, becomes an act that metaphorically animates these figures, granting them dignity and liberating them from dehumanizing objecthood, something I personally long for and seek to express.