Corinna Brewer
Graduate Student

Contact information

Email: corinna.nicole@berkeley.edu

Group: Department of Art Practice

Web site: http://www.corinna-nicole.com.

Personal statement

In my current body of work, I am appropriating classic paintings 

of female nudes by male artists and “recasting” the figure in 

each painting with one of my own female models. 
 Instead of assuming a feminized or erotic pose, however, 
I ask my models to embody masculinity, striving for female 
nudes that project power, strength, and control,  qualities 
more commonly found in representations of the male nude.  
In my paintings of women, I want to remove as much femininity 
as the female body allows. By queering my subjects in this way, 
and in the very act of re-creating works by men as a female 
artist, I hope to provoke questions about artistic representations 
of women. If women artists placed as much emphasis on the 
female nude as male artists have done, how would the paintings 
differ? How do both female and male viewers respond when female 
nudes portray elements of masculinity? Could such images 
challenge the phenomenon of the objectifying male gaze, and 
could they even activate a “lesbian gaze”? If my paintings can 
create a nontraditional viewing space—one in which female nudes 
take on multiple complexities to transcend their traditional status 
as merely beautiful objects—then perhaps they can inspire a 
broader awareness of how we think about gender.