Allegory of Autonomy by Leesa Gray-Pitt in Melbourne

My current body of work employs layering and destruction to create portraits that explore the complexity of the feminine identity. Addressing body image, identity and feminism, I portray my women not as victims of marketability, morality or politics but with a found strength and agency. I purposely source materials such as textiles, fashion magazines and photographs to explore how society measures gender, ideas of power and notions of beauty. Often adorning my paintings with flowers, butterflies, gold leaf, and gems, symbolic of the fraught relationship women have to beauty, innocence, protection and patriarchy. Importantly I use them as separate components that may stand on their own or to an idea of interconnectedness, overlapping identities and intersectionality. My objective being to arrange them to form a harmonious artwork that links all of these elements together. In particular, focusing on intersectionality, of the need to consider both the individual and shared experiences of women in contemporary society. Although my works represent a diversity of women, they are essentially a cathartic expression of my own psychological and physical journey through time. Contemporary society can only rectify gender power imbalances by accepting that we are, in fact, multi-faceted beings with diverse traits. (gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, colour, age, social, physical and mental ability). Furthermore, that feminism is not exclusive but instead should, and is, actively embracing those that identify as femme regardless. My work is an emotional reaction to my personal experience. In other words, it is a cathartic way for me to deal with the psychological aspects of my journey from one of innocence, painful experience to feminism.