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+ Collages
Mary series
In her Mary series, Louise Leathers gives agency to one of the most widely depicted female archetypes in art history. The artist desacralizes the Virgin Mary, granting her reproductive freedom while exposing forms of oppression that often hide in plain sight. Her Madonnas are no longer reduced to motherhood. They become emancipated, unveiling piles of sex toys and condoms instead of swaddled infants. Proudly blasphemous, joyful, and lustful, the series joins a broader movement to re-feminize art history by reclaiming female figures long painted, and defined, by men.
Witches series
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With this series, Louise Leathers explores the condition of women. Every attempt at empowerment collides with the "witch" trope, for that is how they are perceived, and how they are suppressed. Here, the artist seeks to reclaim the symbol, whether through caricature in "Feminism by Eric Z." (a reference to a French politician) or through a sisterly cry of defiance against fascism. She reclaims works from the past, along with the narratives surrounding female figures painted by men, and in doing so continues a broader movement to re-feminize art history.
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Menstruation series
In this series, Louise Leathers places menstrual blood, often a taboo subject or, worse, a patriarchal symbol used to cast women as impure or inferior, at the heart of her work. In "Drink Up" or "La Chambre rouge," the blood is triumphant, mischievously offered to the viewer in a menstrual cup. In "June 24 in America," the blood represents abortion, stripped of shame and brought to the foreground. The title refers to June 24, 2022, the day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, ending the 50-year federal constitutional right to an abortion and giving individual states the power to ban or allow the procedure.
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