A celebration of women's bodies

Informal Intro: Miranda Forrester

Miranda Forrester is a figurative painter from London. 

Forrester’s practice explores the queer black female gaze in painting, relating to the history of men painting womxn naked. Forrester’s work is concerned with addressing the invisibility of women of colour in the history of art and combating the fetishization of these bodies. Forrester’s work investigates how her paintings can rearticulate the language and history of life drawing through a queer black feminist desiring lens, and in doing so, depict what the male gaze cannot see. Her use of stretching plastic over stretchers and painting on highly primed smooth surfaces is fundamental to the work, in that the viewer can see through the bodies; the surface becomes more than skin, they are flesh, real and alive, bare and on display. The work, altogether, is a celebration of women's bodies, the joy in occupying feminine identities and being in relation with one another.

Abode Series 4

Oil on Canvas

31x 41 cm, 2020

This work is of someone who regularly models for me - I think that the comfort and familiarity of our relationship has an impact on the painting. ‘C’ often reads during our drawing sessions, as she was here. However I decided to omit the book - I wanted to create some ambiguity to what she was doing with her hands, what she was holding and retain a sense of openness in the piece.

Abode Series 3
Oil on Canvas
31x 41 cm, 2020

This painting is a small segment of a larger drawing. In other works I often leave out the facial details, as I want the viewer to feel more like they could be the sitter, that they could step into that painting. 

However with this sitter, I really wanted to capture her identity. The sitter for this painting is a trans woman and expressed a sense of being in the process of feeling at home in her body. I wanted to convey that feeling and process of belonging in this painting.

Abode Series 2 
Oil and Gloss on PVC
31x 41 cm, 2020

‘Abode Series 2’ is a continuation of a series exploring peace and tranquillity within oneself. I wanted to bring a sense of that into this work by having the figure appear to be floating, suspended in a sensation of total serenity.

Abode Series 1
Oil and Gloss on PVC
31x41, 2020

I am constantly inspired by my plants, shifting and stretching for the light. I wanted to bring in elements of the figure to this plant to convey the similarities, and how its form is life like. 

She’s been waiting
Oil, Gloss and Image Transfer on Canvas
127x 97 cm, 2020

This painting is the first duo painting I have completed in a while and I was thinking about how to emit a gaze or look between them without using facial details. The power in looking and wondering that they could be thinking, feeling, freezing this moment in time.

Thinking about you
Oil and Gloss on PVC
121x 86 cm, 2020

In ‘Thinking about you’, aesthetically I wanted to play around with negative space and incorporate the stretcher into the painting.  Rather than seeing it as a painting on top of a stretcher, I sought to retain a sense of movement, though with the figure still being rooted in this space.  

For more information on Miranda Forrester’s practice click here and to see available works please go on the Collectors Club.