{"id":677,"date":"2008-12-24T10:49:56","date_gmt":"2008-12-24T09:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/?p=677"},"modified":"2016-09-28T13:18:05","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T11:18:05","slug":"painter-michele-marie-bonnarnes-alias-art-tart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/painter-michele-marie-bonnarnes-alias-art-tart\/","title":{"rendered":"Painter Mich\u00e8le Marie Bonnarens alias Art tart"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nTitle: ‘Probe’, 2004\u00a0by Mich\u00e8le Marie Bonnarens<\/em><\/p>\n

European-American painter Mich\u00e8le Marie Bonnarens<\/h2>\n

has been living in the thriving art and LGBTQ communities of Berlin since 1991. She became a German citizen in 2006.<\/p>\n

Mich\u00e8le Marie Bonnarens: “Art tart and I are the same, and I’m just a “Mensch”. I don’t think I decided to become an artist. I’ve always just been who I am. But I have decided to use the gifts I have to converse and build community with others. The tricky part is doing that from within a western economy.
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\nYou may call my images surrealist. I think that the movement known as the surrealists was quite sexist, and propagated theories that are too dogmatic for my taste. I don’t really see myself as coming from that tradition, though I think it was a fascinating experiment. Personally, I see a strong medieval European influence, though I can’t thank the 20th century western artists enough for opening my mind.<\/p>\n

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\nTitle: ‘All in a day’s work’, 2004-2005 by Mich\u00e8le Marie Bonnarens<\/em><\/p>\n

The ideas for my paintings come in many situations: just washing the dishes, waiting on line somewhere, sitting a minute and staring into space; while reading the newspaper or absentmindedly making marks on paper\u2026 Then they take up a life of their own and the women in them nag themselves into existence. That’s my job – to put them into the world. Then they go off and live their lives. I approach the world from my position as lesbian woman, but both the words lesbian and woman, and the people they shape are historical. I do think that I paint women and their experiences. But I hope one day, it will be impossible to understand my works in this way.
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\nMy work is guided by a religious instinct both in its production and its content. The act of painting is a type of individual meditation. A recurring symbol within my work is “Woman”. “Woman” has a religious sense within my work because the cultural associations around Woman make this symbol a critical point for reflecting on ourselves and our place in the universe, whatever our biology may be. My paintings offer a place for the viewer to enter into their own meditation on the structuring of experience.
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\nIn relation to the works of art that lesbians are consuming, I feel like an insider: I think my paintings speak to something deep within women’s experience of her own definition as woman \u2014 for herself and for others. But in relation to the works of art by other lesbian artists, from what I have seen, I fear I am something of an outsider. However, in the end, I paint abstract paintings, which are constructed in such a way that viewers need to hold multiple points-of-view in order to read them, and have fun with them. This is something that comes easily to the queer community, but this pleasure in seeing is open to all.”
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\n– as told to Birthe Havm\u00f8ller, editor of Feminine Moments, December 2008.
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Related Link<\/h2>\n

Mich\u00e8le Marie Bonnarens’ website<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

European-American painter Mich\u00e8le Marie Bonnarens alias Art tart has been living in the thriving art and lgbtq communities of Berlin since 1991.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[405,16,19],"tags":[304],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist-showcases","category-lesbian-art","category-painting","tag-michele-marie-bonnarens"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t