REFRAMING THE GAZE: EUROPEAN ORIENTALIST ART IN THE EYES OF TURKISH WOMEN ARTISTS
REFRAMING THE GAZE: EUROPEAN ORIENTALIST ART IN THE EYES OF TURKISH WOMEN ARTISTS

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to explore an overlooked subject at the juncture of gender studies and art history by examining the responses of three Turkish women artists to Orientalist art, especially that which portrayed the female form as highly eroticised and exoticised. Orientalism, the European art movement that flourished in the nineteenth century, is being debated visually by these contemporary women artists, who have brought gender issues 'back home' to the original site of Orientalist imagining. Yet, the works of these Turkish women artists raise a critical question: by adjusting their focus on European Orientalist art, do they effectively challenge or unwittingly re-awaken the Orientalist gaze?

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