As Women’s History Month comes to an end, we are celebrating women in the arts through the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ well-known call for action: #5womenartists! The NMWA asks the simple but daring question of if you can name five women artists. This task sounds simple enough, but many people (even art lovers) cannot always answer. We are challenging the male-centric history of art by proudly naming five of Studio Gallery’s #5womenartists, who are in turn sharing their own five favorites with us. We invite you to learn more about women artists and about the NMWA’s challenge as we celebrate Women’s History Month this March 2023 and far beyond.

Studio Gallery has a long history of celebrating artists of all backgrounds. We are proud of our women-founded ancestry, and continue to honor our women artists, both past and present. For more information on our prolific founder, Jennie Lea Knight, visit our website here. To view our most recent outreach show featuring emerging local artists who all identify as women of color, click here to see our exhibit Coffee, curated by Atiya Dorsey,

Lynda Andrews-Barry

Lynda Andrews-Barry is interested in line, color, space, and audience. Her artistic practice explores the integration of the natural and digital worlds, and employs contemporary computer aided design tools paired with the traditional conceptual techniques of drawing, painting, sewing, photography, and hand fabrication. Her work asserts the craft-based primacy of the handmade, grounding itself in the modern world of technology.

She is currently incorporating digital media installations, video projections, and sculpture into experimental groups of narratives which juxtapose the natural environment with the assembled one. She generates ideas for these projects through research and site visits, and attempts to showcase local environs in an unexpected format. Giving a voice to things often considered mundane allows her to combine storytelling with her skills as a designer, fabricator, and tech geek.

Her compositions address power dynamics, conflict, loss, marginalization and deterioration. Through referencing the natural processes of dissolution, this work reflects aspects of existence on the edge of potential demise. She is attempting to reflect the often hidden or ignored ephemeral beauty in our shared environment, sometimes referred to as the “Humble Sublime.” By investigating how the relationships of ones’ actions affect the surrounding human landscape, she is expressing her deep concerns about our rapidly declining commonality.

What does it mean to you to be a woman in the arts?

“Being a woman in Life is challenging! But, I am empowered by challenges to try to keep moving closer to my goals. My life in the arts is no different. The art world is a place where you have to keep pushing forward to get ahead. Just like in my everyday life, in my art world I try to locate opportunities and never get complacent about what I find.”

*Specimen Shadowboxes* by Lynda Andrews-Barry

Who are your top 5 favorite women artists?

“I could spend all day talking about the female artists who inspire me to work hard. There so many! There are many artists I see on Instagram that I admire. So many from D.C., Maryland and Virginia! However, let me name a few of the famous ones.

Betye Saar: West Coast artist Betye Saar is from California like I am. I grew up seeing her assemblages at The Barkeley Art Museum. I was about six years old the first time I saw her work, and was so inspired that I started making collages from my grandma’s Jet magazines and my mom’s Vogue magazines, adding my collections of found objects and rocks.

Allison Saar. Betye’s daughter is a sculptor who makes amazingly poignant and beautiful work influenced by the African diaspora and Black female identity

Jenny Holzer. I love her words.

Pipolitto Rist Her video work is very cool.

Martha Jackson Jarvis Is a D.C. area artist. She works in many different mediums to express her interest in Black female identities and environmental concerns. Her work is amazing. Her public art is thoughtful and a pleasure to view, and she has done a lot of it locally.

I could go on...”

What do you think is the most important thing to remember during Women's History Month (and every month)?

”To be kind to yourself and others.”

If you could send a message to other women artists, what would you say?

“I love your work: show me more!”

Lynda Andrews-Barry’s solo show Petrichor: the scent of the earth after a warm rain (curated by Gaby Mizes) is on view at Studio Gallery from March 29th to April 22nd. We encourage you to visit us at 2108 R Street NW, Washington D.C., 20008 to view her work in person.

Upcoming events:

Meet and Greet:
Friday, March 31st
1-5 pm

Opening Reception:
Saturday, April 1st
4-6 pm

Closing Reception:
Saturday, April 22nd
4-6 pm

First Friday:
Friday, April 7th
5:30-8 pm

Third Thursday:
Thursday, April 20th
5-8 pm

*Sunflower Field* by Lynda Andrews-Barry

Petrichor: the scent of the earth after a warm rain

Learn more about Lynda

Iza Thomas

Iza Thomas is one of Studio Gallery’s newest artist members. Her goal as an artist is to provide through her art a vision of the world that incorporates realism, magic, and the voiceless ghosts of experience. She brings an immigrant's lived life of being settled and unsettled at the same time where the familiar and unfamiliar are constantly intermingling.

She describes her style of painting as Magical Realism. When Thomas was a young girl, she fell in love with Magical Realism books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Julio Cortazar, and others. She still likes Magical Realism, but now she paints it.

Thomas tells stories through her paintings, short stories that each viewer can then take and re-imagine according to their own lived lives. She finds herself in astonishment as to what her viewers see and what they bring to what is there. She is firmly of the opinion that art helps us exist in this world just as much as air, and it brings joy as well as insight to that existence.

Iza Thomas poses in front of her painting *Infatuation*

What does it mean to you to be a woman in the arts?

“Being an artist is hard, and mostly unremunerative. Being a woman artist is even harder but so unnecessarily so. There are not enough female voices in the arts. While there are a lot more women artists than there used to be, most galleries represent more men than women. That needs to change. I remember when classical orchestras were finally able to bring more female musicians by a simple change of having blind auditions where the reviewing committee did not know the gender of the player. If we could take away the built-in and still existing bias to immediately diminish the output of women just based on the fact they are not men, then we could make art stronger and richer and meaningful in completely different ways than what it is now.”

What do you think is the most important thing to remember during Women’s History Month (or any other month)?

“Art is as important as breathing. Women need to push everything aside and be selfish occasionally in the face of the overwhelming quotidian demands on their time to set aside space and breathing room for art. They can then sink into art, something as meaningful and important as drawing breath. Art will never be as valued as commerce but so what? We need to keep doing what we can to make a moment meaningful for us and others.”

Who are your top 5 favorite women artists?

“Simone Leigh
Contemporary American sculptor

Extraordinary and powerful sculptor. Her sculptures are larger than life, awesomely powerful. She brings focus to black women and their experience. She is the first Black female artist to represent the United States with a solo show in the U.S. Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale International Exhibition (2022). There is a cool symmetry I see between her sculptures with their dresses and their space and my paintings of mannequins and dolls. Her sculpture in Glenstone Museum inspired me to paint The Mannequin.

Cindy Sherman
Contemporary American photographer

She transforms herself into different human types and stereotypes and then photographs herself. I love how she often times doesn’t hide the preparation efforts (her make-up is not blended, her wigs are askew, etc.). She challenges us to consider identity and gender. Her theatrical effects are magical and that speaks to me.

Artemisia Gentileschi
17th century Italian painter

She was ahead of her times, an early feminist in a time when that was miraculous to carry off and earn a living. She portrayed strong, rebellious and vigorous women not delicate and idealized figures as was the common practice during that time. She was a great naturalist painter who handled light and shadow extremely well (deeply influenced by Carravaggio). She was the first woman accepted into the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, (Academy of the Arts of Drawing) in Florence.

Hilma af Klimt
Swedish painter, pioneer of abstract art in early 20th century

One of the first women to ever study at an art university in Stockholm, she was ahead of her times (in her will she asked to hide her paintings and only reveal them 20 years after her death since she didn’t think people were ready for her abstract work). I love her vibrant colors.

Rachel Ruysch
18th century Dutch still-life painter

As I am obsessed with Dutch paintings, I like Rachel Ruysch and her brilliant colors and attention to detail in her still-life flowers. She actually was one of the few early women artists who became famous during her lifetime.

A common thread of all of these five strong women is that they were pioneers, ahead of their time and ‘the first’ to achieve something, while not compromising anything in their art.”

Learn more about Iza

Freda Lee-McCann

Mountains have been a traditional subject for Chinese landscape paintings since the eleventh century. These mountains have always been Freda Lee-McCann’s love, and painting these bones of the earth has provided her with a joy and endless fascination both with the paintings themselves and with the connection to her heritage that they provide. For over twenty years, Lee-McCann studied with the Master C. C. Wang of New York City until his death in 2003. Mr. Wang taught her about both Chinese landscape painting and the brushwork upon which it is based, which provides the backbone for her paintings. Mr. Wang instilled in her a love for this brushwork and its uniqueness to the Chinese tradition. Since 2003 Lee-McCann has been developing her own style by merging some of the Western tradition for colors and the black ink brushwork of traditional Chinese paintings. The use of colors has given her an additional dimension with which she can give stronger emotional content while still retaining the traditional character of her work. Her new direction is an exciting journey and provides a new perspective on these traditional subjects.

What does it mean to you to be a woman in the arts?

“It is harder for women to have a serious career in Art or any other profession. Many women artists (including some of my friends and myself) feel a need to take care of everything for our family first before we do our own work. Balancing a family and a career is not easy. Hopefully, this is easier for the younger generations.

I want to share an experience with you of an observation about female youngsters. In the last few years before COVID, I taught a few art classes to children between the age of 9-11 years old. I found some things interesting after I gave them the assignment, which included a lot of freedom. The boys started working immediately without hesitation. However, the girls were not comfortable; they wanted more directions. After I explained that there were no wrong answers, they were still hesitant. They wondered if they were doing things correctly. The girls seemed inhibited to express themselves; they didn’t want to break any rules and wanted to please me. I was surprise by the different responses from the boys and girls given that they were so young. This happened in all my classes. If they have been conditioned at such a young age, it might be hard to break out of this stereotyped mode later in life.

When I first started learning Traditional Chinese painting, I was told that women did not do Landscapes paintings, they did flowers and beautiful things. I did not take that advice, because I love landscape paintings; often, my work was mistaken for being done by a man. I have continued to paint landscapes during my art career. I can remember that long time ago, female artists were afraid to sign their name on their work, because they did not want the judges to know they were women. They felt that they had a better chance to be juried into a show if they were men. Hopefully, that is in the past. I have noticed that many women are now coming into important roles in the Arts. Hopefully, there will be more changes in the direction of the arts.”

Who are your top 5 favorite women artists?

“My favorite women artists are Georgia O’Keeffe, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Frida Kahlo, Alma Thomas and Katherine Chang Liu. I will not address any specific work of theirs which I love. I feel inspired by their work, because each of them has a unique, authentic, and powerful style. Their talent and dedication to making art impress me. Each time I see their work, I learn something new because there is so much depth in their works. Other than Frida Kahlo, whose subject matter is all about her own womanhood, I don’t think of the other artists as women artists, but artists who happened to be women.”

What do you think is the most important thing to remember during Women's History Month (and every month)?

“Discover and seek out new artists who happened to be women. Learn about them and introduce their work to new audiences. Help young female artists to be themselves and not worry about doing things incorrectly.”

If you could send a message to other women artists, what would you say?

“Do what you love and be yourselves. Be committed and give it all. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Don’t let anyone tell you what you should do. Find your own way in time. Choose your path and enjoy the journey. The journey is the important one, not the final destination; after all, you are painting for yourself. This advice probably goes for anyone, regardless of gender.”

*Where It All Began* by Freda Lee-McCann

Learn more about Freda

Victoria Hanks

Initially stemming from an interest in the physical and textural properties of animal bodies and then later the sentient experiences of those animals, Victoria Hanks’ current work focuses more on using animal personalities to act out very human experiences. Sometimes somewhat cartoonish but with some pathos or angst, she tries to put on an animal mask, so to speak, to act out the fears and emotions common to people. This could be seen as perhaps exploitive and lacking in any true understanding of animals or maybe even many people, however she does want to show a sympathetic feeling toward the animals as well. If they are sad or angry but also lovable, they can at least be compelling and someone may want to take one home.

What does it mean to you to be a woman in the arts?

“Being a woman in the arts is in some ways similar to anyone in the arts in terms of making art a part of my life in America - in other words, it can be a struggle to balance what I do for a living with my art practice which is a huge part of my psyche and takes a large amount of my time. Many male artists go through this as well as there are very limited funds and support for artists in this country. But - there are big differences that many women including me, contend with in that most women are responsible for the domestic side of life, if they are balancing art and a job and family. Living life and making art are not two separate things, as can sometimes be assumed when I see artists of some fame profiled - as though they sprung fully formed out of some art crucible and they did not have to first figure something out or continue to manage and juggle many different aspects of life that all feed into the art.

I hear that recognized women artists don’t command as high prices for their art as men. I’m sure that’s probably true but I’m not in that league so I can’t tell if I have experienced that. I would like not to be seen as a “woman artist” actually. Just have the art be taken on its own merits and get rid of any gender bias but of course that’s impossible. I could remove all traces of my female orientation from social media and go by my initials or a male name as some female writers have done in the past like George Sand to see if I am approached differently. It would be an interesting experiment. As a woman artist, depending on subject matter, there can be an assumption by men that there is something sexual going on in the work. This is often a case of the viewer bringing their own interests to the work and seeing it through that lens. Being a woman artist is different at different times of life in terms of the way women are viewed because of the way men and our society objectify women. As an older woman my art may not seem to have anything sexual going on when a man looks at it just by virtue of the fact that I’m no longer an ingenue which is kind of funny. There are pervasive stereotypes attached to women of course that affect women artists. My commitment to and excitement in making art has not wavered for years. On the contrary it may be more exciting now that I have more confidence in what I am doing and no longer compare myself to others. I don’t really think about being a”woman” artist while I’m working. Some women artists that I am acquainted with don’t have children, as I do not, and we’ve talked about how that was a choice because we perceived we couldn’t have it all. I don’t know if there is a male artist that ever had to sit down and consider an either/or like that.

The idea of being labeled a woman artist as opposed to just an artist is problematic. I think it can be as divisive as being a Republican or a Democrat. That does not mean I’m not in support of more money, opportunities and rights for women in general and in art - I most certainly am. It just can feel somewhat primitive to be at the level of clamoring for attention as a woman artist, meaning an under recognized group. We are certainly not a minority so women in general can be overlooked in all of society as well as in art as needing any help.”

Who are your top 5 favorite women artists?

“Louise Bourgeois for her idiosyncratic little drawings and her steadfast dedication to her art into her 90’s. Leonora Carrington - I love the surrealists and her works are very magical. Elizabeth Murray - when I look at her sculptured 3D canvases it is like looking at an invention that is so straightforward of an idea that it’s perfect and you can’t imagine why it was never done before. Jessica Stockholder’s weird installations were inspiring to me for their awkward juxtapositions and saturated colors. I thought, how did she have the nerve to put all that stuff together and call it art? And Alice Neel - I’ve never been interested in portraits but her style of painting is so singular. I love looking at it.”

What do you think is the most important thing to remember during Women's History Month (and every month)?

“I think if we are going to set aside time to focus on women, we should be realistic. Women need time and money to make art. It’s very simple. Residencies can sometimes accomplish this but when you leave to do one, most women have to worry about how things may fall apart at home while they’re gone. The problems women encounter in making art often are the same for women trying to do anything that does not serve others. Men don’t have this problem. Society celebrates the self-made man and the aggressive man single-mindedly going after what he wants, whether that generates more work for his wife or partner or not and allows him to fully focus on his own goals. Women are considered unnatural if they behave in the same way. We have the same drive as men. We can be subjected to guilt trips if we act on that drive.”

If you could send a message to other women artists, what would you say?

“I would say try to live as independently as possible so you can figure out who you are. I mean think for yourself, have faith in your own judgement, in your own ideas and gut feelings. You can’t make your own art if you are looking to others to validate you or your work. You can’t separate you from your art.”

Learn more about Victoria

Halley Sun Stubis

Halley Sun Stubis is an Asian American artist and the Director of Studio Gallery, Washington D.C’s oldest artist cooperative and women-founded nonprofit. She received her BFA at The School of The Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Her art has been exhibited at Studio Gallery, where she works with the cooperative’s 60+ local artists to bring public attention to their diverse portfolios. She is passionate about bringing people together through a shared love of the arts, and creates work based around identity and storytelling. Stubis is inspired by the many strong women and women artists in her life, and often uses the feminine form in her work to express resilience, beauty, and history.

What does it mean to you to be a woman in the arts?

“To me, being a woman in the arts means lifting up other women in the arts, and expressing my experiences in an honest and full way. There are so many thoughts, celebrations, and struggles that are unique to women, and I feel grateful to have my own insight into the complexity of this. Women artists throughout history have struggled in so many ways, and I think that it is our duty today to honor their accomplishments, previously recognized or not. We can do this both by celebrating them specifically, educating ourselves on their diverse portfolios and lives, as well as by being true to ourselves in our own art-making today. The path to equality has been complicated, and I feel extremely fortunate to be able to be a woman in the arts today, not only allowed but encouraged to create and use my platform to uplift others who are doing the same. We still have a ways to go, but I am extremely grateful to have what I do, and look forward to continuing to push forward on this path alongside my fellow artists/art professionals.”

*Islands* by Halley Sun Stubis (page 3 of an artist book)

Who are your top 5 favorite women artists?

“My top five favorite women artists are:

1. Laurie Andersen, for her vivid VR exhibits and compelling use of storytelling
2. Frida Kahlo, for her unique imagery pertaining to womanhood and the self
3. Chiara Bautista, for her rich symbolism and intimate, modern style
4. Angela Lorenz, for her immense creativity in redefining what a “book” may be
5. Alma Thomas, for her mesmerizing use of color and composition

What do you think is the most important thing to remember during Women's History Month (and every month)?

“That women, as a fact, walk through the world differently. We are both blessed and cursed with unique, diverse perspectives correlated with our womanhood, and I believe this makes sharing our art-making all the more important. Womanhood and the feminine offer such vivid, varied points of view, and it’s so important to remember that even as women, we will not always relate to other women’s experiences. One of the best things that I think we can do is listen to women without judgment and to support them, whether they are sharing their stories through art or not. To me, empathy is key in so many circumstances, and especially in this one.”

If you could send a message to other women artists, what would you say?

“Keep creating! Keep showing your work to others, whether you are a well seasoned artist or just starting out. We have so much to share, both beautiful and painful. Art-making is magic, and it is therapeutic. You are supported, even by people who do not know you yet.”

Join our artist cooperative

Written by Studio Gallery Director Halley Stubis.

SG Blog

Lynda Andrews-Barry

Iza Thomas

Freda Lee-McCann

Victoria Hanks

Halley Sun Stubis