The thing called life is difficult for many and painful for some yet fulfilling for others. Some experience everything and live to tell and express themselves through art. For women, the world of art can accentuate the harsh reality some face personally and professionally. Joey Horn aims to recognize their achievements. Horn comes from a varied background that’s taken many turns and side roads. She’s an executive producer of film. Has an M.B.A. from Yale and worked as an investment banker for Credit Suisse First Boston in New York and a consultant at Boston Consulting Group in Oslo. She now works as the Managing Director of Oak Management AS. But that’s just her day job. Charity is her passion, especially as it relates to children and women and the challenges they face. Mothers2Mothers, Cancer Research U.K., Restore The Music U.K. are some of the causes she champions. In addition to group endeavors, Joey Horn wants to shed light on individual female artists.
The first is Shilpa Gupta. Women are mainly silent in India, and many like it that way, but times are changing. Described as fearless, Gupta sets her sights on awareness through controversy, and the more, the better. Breaking the envelope is her mantra, and her goal is to make her society face its past and alter its future to force change. One exhibit, in particular, is titled Untitled (Wives Of The Disappeared). It highlights the harsh reality that women face when their husbands disappear due to the violence in Kashmir. Untitled presents graphic images of despair and the forced realization that the survivors must carry on. Shilpa Gupta has seen her work displayed in New York’s Rubin Museum Of Art and Florida’s Rosemary Square Art Program.
Though not as dramatic, Lin Tianmiao presents gender identification from the Chinese point of view. She is an installation artist and designer of textiles who uses her craft to illustrate the stark contrasts between genders. Her work, Boy And Girl, sought to bring that to light. Tianmiao thinks that gender-based oppression is a worldwide phenomenon that encourages girls to submit and boys to aspire to masculinity. Her work has shown up in Hong Kong’s Singapore Art Museum, San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art, National Gallery Of Australia, New Yorks’ Museum Of Modern Art, and New York’s Brooklyn Museum. Because of the COVID- 19 outbreak, she currently has an exhibition online named “Red.” It contains 25 pieces accentuating the color red with part of the proceeds going to Heart To Heart International for pandemic relief.
Laylah Ali is a contemporary visual artist who wants to illustrate racial disparity and sometimes uses violent art to present that reality. Her work also shows the premeditation of violence and its aftermath. Ali wants to show the effects of systemic human rights abuses, increasing crime, and atrocities. A current project is titled “Greenheads Series.” It is a collection of 80 miniature paintings containing characters that seek to destroy gender, age, and race stereotypes. Another is “Acephalous,” which shows headless figures in sexually charged themes. The goal is to invite the viewer to make interpretations on their own. Laylah has had her work shown at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Museum Of
Contemporary Art, Boston Institute Of Contemporary Art, and New York’s Museum Of Modern Art. She also works as a professor at Williams College in Massachusetts.
Joey Horn is of Indian heritage and grew up in both New York City and Paris. She and her Norwegian husband have three children. Horn is fluent in four languages and has lived in the U.S.A., Norway, and Singapore.
