Painting the Body: Feminist Musings on Visual Autographies

In this paper I look at autographical depictions of the body in the work of Mato Ioannidou, a Greek woman artist, who participated in a wider narrative-based project on visual and textual entanglements between life and art. The paper unfolds in three parts: first, I give an overview of Ioannidou’s artwork, making connections with significant events in her life; then I discuss feminist theorizations of embodiment and visual auto/biography; and finally I draw on insights from Spinozist feminist philosophers to discuss the artist’s portrayal of women’s bodies in three cycles of her work. What I argue is that the body becomes a centerpiece in the attempt to perceive connections between life and art through expressionism rather than representation

La Danse

La Danse is a recreation of one of Matisse’s most well known works -Danse- created by Matisse for Verve Magazine. His original work Dansewas originally one of two pieces (Danseand Music) commissioned by renowned art collector Sergei Shchukin to decorate his mansion, the Trubetskoy Palace, in Moscow. Two linocut prints on reverse. Work included in \u27School of Paris\u27 exhibition, 2019.https://commons.und.edu/jsp-artwork/1190/thumbnail.jp

Red Room (Harmony in Red)

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View of Notre-Dame

The painting is predominantly in hues of blue. There are two windows portrayed from the inside of a room with a variety of diagonal, horizontal and verticle black lines defining the interior space

Piano Lesson

The painting shows a young boy facing the viewer, looking at sheet music, and playing the piano. At the lower left of the painting is a depiction of Matisse's "Decorative Figure," a nude female figure. At the top right of the painting on the wall behind the piano is a replication of Matisse's "Woman on a High Stool" painting. On the piano are a rose-colored cloth, candle and metronome. Black scrollwork is seen on the piano stand and the grillwork of the window