What makes a beautiful woman beautiful? We’ve all heard the clichés; that beauty is in the eye of the beholder or that it comes from the deepest regions of the soul. It’s one of those abstract concepts we can describe at great length, but never really define.
Dove’s notorious Advertising Age campaign which boasts ‘real women’ and ‘natural beauty’ asks readers to chose between pejorative statements – ‘fat’ or ‘fab’, ‘wrinkled’ or ‘wonderful’. Conversely, infamous Daily Mail columnist Samantha Brick recently commented how 57 year old presenter Mary Beard is simply ‘too ugly for TV’.
Clearly, mass media has done much to shape and define what is considered ‘beautiful’ in contemporary culture, and unfortunately, what is considered beautiful is youth. But this has led to an oversimplification of how we view those who are less youthful.
Stepping into the glass fronted Brian Duke Foyer is stepping into an appreciation of beauty of women from the twenty something to the over sixty. RONA’s ‘STILL beautiful’ exhibition features six very diverse, refreshingly natural portraits of women. All the models are over seventy, each portrait alongside a corresponding painting of the same woman in her twenties. These are the everyday women who make up the British population behind the Botox and Barbie of the media. The message of RONA’s work is very clear: it’s time to celebrate older women and, as the artist says, ‘give them the respect they deserve.’
It is impossible to ignore the attractive paintings of the younger women; such as the carefree expression of young Phyl, her smile and classical good looks reminiscent of a young Audrey Hepburn. Likewise Betty Blandino, a brunette whose cheekbones are accentuated by the monochrome contrast, a colour scheme adopted for all portraits in the collection. The light wash of pink used for these women’s paintings instantly draws the viewer’s eye to the bold pink legend of the portrait next to it, the smaller, square painting of that same woman as an elderly lady.
This pink caption, ‘beautiful’, proudly proclaims the underlying principle of the exhibition.This caption, coupled with the black outline of the models is reminiscent of Warhol’s monochromatic prints, although the realist style presents the women in an honest, natural way. Yes, we can appreciate the attractive younger women, but this beauty is immediately apparent as soon as we enter the room –their portraits being almost double the size of their partners, after all. But the smaller sized paintings urge us to gaze closer at the mature women. The fine lines of Betty and the crinkles around her smile are worn, not with a desperate attempt to look younger than her years, but with a frankness, a satisfaction with who she is.
In RONA’s work we are at liberty to connect the young with the old, recognizing the differing kinds of beauty which comes with each. Although the older portraits could benefit from a splash of pink, we can appreciate the vitality in the faces of these worldly women. And it is this appreciation of life at all stages of life, that is beauty.
