The Street

 The document under analysis is a contemporary photograph. There is a middle-aged woman who is wearing a green jacket, a multi-colored plain-woven foulard, white earrings and a bracelet in her left hand. She is leaning her left hand on a tattered blue bar which creates a barrier between her and the figure she is trying to paint. Her eyes are goggled at the wall while her right hand is carrying a paint brush between her thumb and index finger. She is trying to paint a male figure. The skin of the foregoing figure is dark and yellow. He averted his eyes and to some extent he gives a stilted gaze. Next to the male figure we can see a couple of white flowers placed at the left corner. 

       We can interpret the aforementioned photograph in a multiplicity of ways. The colors used in the photograph represent a sense of serenity and harmony. The blue bar and some of the white scratches on it mark the periodic rise and fall of the sea level which reflects upon the figures. It is not haphazard because it creates a barrier between different genders. Besides, we can say that the action of painting by a female figure is a reaction against the capitalist views concerning women, gender and art. Various artists tend to make women pose in front of them, motionless and silent and cage them in canvas. Conversely, this act of painting can be seen as an act of liberation that cuts the umbilical cord of this dogma which has so long dominated the modern art painting scene. Moreover, we cannot insist on using the personal pronoun "She" or "He" if we ought to move further with the interpretation. Choosing different colors in the foulard makes the woman inclusive, as if the colors are a representation of all women, nations, diversity and inclusion as well. Therefore this woman's experience is not personal but rather impersonally universal. 

 

       The foregoing photograph also invites us to look at the question of gender from a new lens. It is not merely a simple photograph shot by an artist seeking applause or praise. It is there to shift our attention to the gender tensions we face nowadays. It is also a direct criticism to the situation of art and modern day galleries which neglect male-dominated street art. The absence of any signature or details about the artist is an indirect message to the situation of the forlorn and marginalized artists in the world as well. Indeed, wall painting is an outcry of a woman or a female denouncing a male dominated space, that is, the street.