My project is inspired by Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject (Approaching Abjection) and my art history course about the monstrous feminine (ARTH 368 - Studies in Contemporary Art & Architecture: The Monstrous Feminine). The term "monstrous feminine" aims to identify the representation of a woman as shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject, something that disturbs the system, identity, and order (Creed). The abject refers to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object or between self and other (an example is excrement: it comes from you, yet it is not you and this is a horror since it destabilizes meaning and identity; Kristeva). According to Kristeva, persons born biologically female are considered abject (feminine filth, fluids, sin, body, nature), and female abject threatens the dissolution of the male ego. What the abject does is it “tears” the fabric of the symbolic order, and in order to deal with that the patriarchal society makes the abject “taboo” such as feminine fluids and menstruation. Lynda Nead explains in her text, “Theorizing the Female Nude”: “[the abject] begins to speak of a deep-seated fear and disgust of the female body and of femininity within patriarchal culture and of a construction of masculinity around the related fear of the contamination and dissolution of the male ego” (17). 

 

The emphasis of this work is on exposing the body’s base materiality, the abjection of the female body, and the bodily realities of reproductive function that is stigmatized and considered taboo: menstruation. In many cultures, menstrual blood is a polluting substance associated with the inherent impurity of the biological process, both as a human and as a woman. To consider feminine beauty within the patriarchal society that has and continues to dominate society and the art world, is by attaching it to a clean and proper body, which means rejecting the aforementioned natural bodily functions (Chusna & Mahmudah, 2013)

 

My project is a series of paintings about menstruation using a monochromatic red colour scheme, alluding to the colour of menstrual blood. Because everything is painted in tints of red, the bright red image of menstrual blood is less obvious and it is inverted to a white colour, alluding to male semen. This is a commentary on how male fluids (semen) are not frowned upon in society as is feminine fluids (menstrual blood), although both are reproductive processes, genital and bodily fluids. Through the inversion of the colours, the fluid seen can be interpreted as menstrual fluid or semen, challenging the notion of what might be considered sexy and what might be considered “taboo” and “disgusting”. My paintings present a dichotomy of both embellishing the ugly, and making the beautiful ugly depending on how the viewer interprets the subject matter.

 

Chusna, Aidatul, and Shofi, Mahmudah. "Female Monsters: Figuring Female Transgression in 

Jennifer's Body (2009) and the Witch (2013)." Humaniora, vol. 30, no. 1, 2018, pp. 

10-16, doi.org/10.22146/jh.v30i1.31499. 

 

Creed, Barbara. “Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection” in The Monstrous-Feminine. London: Routledge, 1993.

 

Kristeva, Julia. “Approaching Abjection.”  Oxford Literary Review, vol. 5, no. 1/2, 1982,  pp. 125–149. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/ 43973647. 

 

Nead, Lynda. “Theorizing the Female Nude” in The Female Nude in Art: Art, Obscenity and  Sexuality. Routledge 1992. pp. 5-33