Artist Biographies
Jerri Allyn (b. 1954)
Jerri Allyn is a Los Angeles based artist, educator, and scholar. She co founded performance art group The Waitresses along with Anne Gauldin, as well as Sisters of Survival and Debating Through the Arts. She is interested in extending art past its typical spaces, often creating interactive installations or public performances. Allyn has exhibited internationally, and has earned prestigious fellowships, residencies, and grants.
https://allynjerri.wordpress.com
Judy Chicago (b. 1939)
Judy Chicago is an artist, author, educator, and intellectual. She has exhibited works internationally and is a published writer. Her best known work, The Dinner Party, has been viewed by over one million people throughout 16 exhibitions in six countries. Chicago is also a pioneer of feminist art education, and she has works in the permanent collections of the British Museum, LACMA, Tate Modern, Art Institute of Chicago, and many more.
https://www.judychicago.com/about/biography/
Patty Chang (b. 1972)
Patty Chang is a Los Angeles based artist who works in performance, video, and installation. Her work has been exhibited all over the world in MOMA, Hammer, The BANK, and more. She has also received fellowships and awards from the Rockefeller Foundation and John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
http://www.pattychang.com/about
Cheryl Donegan (b. 1962)
Cheryl Donegan is a New York based artist and educator best known for her video works, and also works in performance, installation, and painting. Her practice often focuses on issues of sex and gender. Donegan has exhibited internationally at the Whitney Biennial, MOMA, and the Venice Biennale.
https://cheryldonegan.com/biography
Karen Finley (b. 1956)
Karen Finley is an American performance artist, musician, and poet. She is best known for her spoken word performances. She explores issues of violence against women, sexuality, and the body. Finley is a recipient of an Obie Award as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. She also earned grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, despite senate efforts to veto these grants due to Finley’s sexuality.
Micol Hebron (b. 1972)
Micol Hebron is a Los Angeles based interdisciplinary artist. Her practice includes performance, video, installation, curating, writing, teaching, and social media. Micol is a professor at Chapman University. She is the founder and director of The Situation Room, creator of the digital male nipple pasty, and started the Gallery Tally Project in 2014. Hebron has also worked as the chief curator at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, director of UCLA Summer Art Institute, and a conservator at LACMA.
http://micolhebron.artcodeinc.com/pages/bio-and-artist-statements-and-old-news/
Joyce Jandette (b. 1986)
Joyce Jandette is a Mexico based performance artist. Their work is often focused on issues such as violence against women and femicide.
https://vimeo.com/user16470191
Shigeko Kubota (1937-2015)
Shigeko Kubota was a Japanese artist who is best known in the Japanese avant-garde movement. She participated in New York fluxus events throughout the 60’s. Following her best known work, Vagina Painting, Kubota began exploring video work and became a pioneer of the new medium.
https://www.moma.org/artists/3277
Suzanne Lacy (b. 1945)
Suzanne Lacy is a pioneer feminist artist. She is also an educator, writer, and professor at USC. In addition to performance, Lacy has worked in public installation and video. Her works often focus on raising awareness about violence and sexual assault against women. She has shown work internationally and is also well-known for her writing.
https://www.suzannelacy.com/about
Lea Lublin (1929-1999)
Lea Lublin was an Argentine-French artist. After abandoning painting, Lublin moved to Paris to become a conceptual and performance artist. Her works have been both shown and collected internationally, including in the Hammer Museum’s Radical Women, Latin American Art 1960-1855 exhibition.
http://www.lealublin.com/biographie
María Evelia Marmolejo (b. 1958)
María Evelia Marmolejo is a Colombian performance artist. Her work is predominantly focused on themes such as political oppression, social and economic conditions of Latin America, and gender issues. The artist often performs ritual based works to celebrate the female body. Marmolejo’s work was also featured in the Hammer Museums’ Radical Women Exhibition.
https://hammer.ucla.edu/radical-women/artists/maria-evelia-marmolejo
Ana Mendieta (1948-1985)
Ana Mendieta was a Cuban artist who abandoned painting, which she said was not real enough, in order to pursue performance. Mendieta came to the US as a refugee, which led to much of her work focusing on themes of finding a home and connecting her body to the land. Mendieta earned a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts grant, as well as exhibited internationally throughout her short life. Mendieta is also the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award. She is best remembered for her Silueta series, which explored ritual, death, and the female body through impressions in nature.
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/ana-mendieta
Okwui Okpokwasili (b. 1972)
Okwui Okpokwasili is an artist, choreographer, and writer based in New York. Much of her work fuses dance, theater, storytelling, and visual art. She is a MacArthur fellow, a Hoddler fellow, and her work has been commissioned by the Center for the Art or Performance at UCLA. Okpokwasili’s work is often focused on the experiences of African and African American women, and she aims to tell their complex stories through her bodily movements.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1019/
Sandra Orgel
Aviva Rahmani
Cindy Rehm
Cindy Rehm is a Los Angeles based artist who works predominantly in performance, drawing, and video. She is also a professor at Chapman University, the founder and former director of Spare Room, and co-founder of Feminist Love Letters. Her work, often ritual-based performance, focuses on the female body and myth, and is often informed by the history of women’s art and writing.
http://www.cindyrehm.com/about
Carolee Schneemann (1939-2019)
Carolee Schneemann was a multidisciplinary artist and writer. Her work was groundbreaking, exploring topics previously considered taboo such as female sexuality and the body. Although best remembered as a pioneer feminist performance artist, Schneemann asserted strongly that she identified as a painter. Schneemann has exhibited internationally and taught extensively, her work has been shown extensively since the 1970’s, including numerous retrospectives.
http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/bio.html
Annie M. Sprinkle (b. 1954)
Annie Sprinkle is an American sex educator, former sex worker, and performance artist. She is the first porn star to bridge the gap between sex work and fine art. Sprinkle has been using bodily fluids in her art practice for decades, which often focuses on providing both pleasure and education, celebrating the female body. Sprinkle was also an official artist in Documenta 14.
Jennifer Tamayo
Jennifer Tamayo is an artist, poet, and essayist. Her writing has been published in Contemporary, Perigee, and The Capilano Review.
http://www.jennifertamayo.com/about
Janet Toro (b. 1963)
Janet Toro is a Chilean artist. Her work is often performance or installation, focusing on relevant political and social issues. The artist works from research, experience, and intuition. Toro was included in the Hammer Museum’s Radical Women Exhibition, and her work is in The Phoenix Museum’s permanent collection.