My work is a "visual pamphlet" in which I respond to the contemporary image of the double standard surrounding the sexuality of women in the media. I make self-portraits and self-representations of women and mainly work with the medium of photography (formerly video). I use performance photography. I use the photos that arise in my performative sessions as interventions in public space: uploads on social media, sticking posters in the city, stickers, sending cards and other actions in the public space.
I see this intervention in the public space as a territorial act (visual pamphlet) distributed in the public space in order to reclaim that public space (normally for advertising) for women. I also participate in formal presentations in exhibitions at home and abroad.
Now that the power and censorship of social media is even greater
and narrowing the debate around women's self-presentation, I feel the need to reclaim public space in various ways.
The Ideal Woman - Wild Summer of Art Brutus
Bodies and the How of Seeing The Photographs of Hester Scheurwater and Lina Scheynius by Barry Schwabsky - I am excited that Artforum critic Barry Schwabsky reviewed my books for THE BODY issue of Bordercrossings Magazine:
"Critic and poet Barry Schwabsky looks closely at the work of two startling photographers, Hester Scheurwater and Lina Scheynius whose bodies and bodies of work are close, intimate and entirely credible, somehow interrupting the medium’s interventions."
Barry Schwabsky is a critic, teacher, editor and poet who has published 8 books of art criticism and poetry. He is the art critic for The Nation and is the co-editor of international reviews for Artforum.
https://bordercrossingsmag.com/magazine/issue/issue-158
Noorderlicht Internationaal Fotofestival Groningen The Makeable Mind - Tijdens festival Noorderlicht wordt de relatie tussen visuele cultuur en de werkelijkheid verkend. Hester Scheurwater maakt daarbij gebruik van lantaarnpalen.
Performance Slouch Beftival Amsterdam - Een ode aan de vulva, geen pornopoezen maar lippen zonder schaamte - uit essay Romy Zwart voor Mister Motley. Over Performance SLOUCH by Hester Scheurwater, starring Noemi Calzavara at Sexyland
" Vergelijkbaar met de performance van Robertis is het optreden ‘SLOUCH’ van Hester Scheurwater met danseres Noemi Calzavara in de hoofdrol. Tijdens de voorstelling die in begin 2022 plaatsvond in Sexyland World, een cultureel clubhuis in Amsterdam, lag Calzavara op een kruk met enkel een trui aan. De danseres vouwde haar benen open en toonde haar blote vulva aan het publiek. Met haar benen wijd draaide ze zichzelf rond op de kruk, zodat iedereen in de zaal haar kon bekijken. De toeschouwers konden niet ongegeneerd de voyeur uithangen, want de blik van de performer hield hun nauwlettend in de gaten. De performance was confronterend, wat bleek uit de vele mensen (opvallend genoeg voornamelijk mannen) die de blikken uit de weg gingen en de ruimte verlieten.
Scheurwater reageert met haar werk op de dubbele standaard rondom vrouwelijke seksualiteit in de media. Aan de ene kant moeten vrouwen niet te preuts zijn en aan de andere kant wordt het toe-eigenen van seksualiteit gezien als zedeloosheid. In performances als ‘SLOUCH’ eisen kunstenaars de openbare ruimte terug en de macht over hoe er naar haar lichaam en seksualiteit wordt gekeken. Dit is in reactie op de censuur op sociale media en hoe het vrouwelijk lichaam wordt ingezet voor advertenties. Het geïdealiseerde beeld dat voldoet aan de schoonheidsidealen heeft geen plek in het oeuvre van Scheurwater."
Through a Unfiltered Lens: Authentic and Raw Female Sexuality
I Should Have Done That – Nest The Hague - After Mappethorp
Sincerely Not Yours - With her latest project Sincerely Not Yours, Dutch artist Hester Scheurwater strikes back (again) –the ironic twist of the famous closing formula functioning as the artist’s response to the critics and comments she had received as a result of her previous work Shooting Back. She now not only took her work on social media but on the streets of her hometown and elsewhere thanks to postcards sent to every corner of the world. Sincerely Not Yours started from the wish to show the female body as it is, in all its diversity. For the series, Scheurwater published a call for women to come to her studio and get photographed in the nude. The photographs were then printed on stickers and pasted on the streets of Rotterdam. The placement of these images of the female body –sometimes scarred by cancer surgery and life—were territorial acts of reclaiming public space for women of all paths of life and body shapes.
Sincerly Not Yours - With her latest project Sincerely Not Yours, Dutch artist Hester Scheurwater strikes back (again) –the ironic twist of the famous closing formula functioning as the artist’s response to the critics and comments she had received as a result of her previous work Shooting Back. She now not only took her work on social media but on the streets of her hometown and elsewhere thanks to postcards sent to every corner of the world. Sincerely Not Yours started from the wish to show the female body as it is, in all its diversity. For the series, Scheurwater published a call for women to come to her studio and get photographed in the nude. The photographs were then printed on stickers and pasted on the streets of Rotterdam. The placement of these images of the female body –sometimes scarred by cancer surgery and life—were territorial acts of reclaiming public space for women of all paths of life and body shapes.
Shooting Back - “Scheurwater’s work evolves in the tradition of the self-portrait in photography. Think for example of Robert Mapplethorpe’s sexually charged visual provocations or Francesca Woodman’s erotic mise-en-scène, to name only two artists. Scheurwater‘s visual self-explorations extend the boundaries of another main topic in art history and photography: the pose. But in her pictures model and artist are one. Yes, this is sexually explicit work, but even more it is a curious and smart research about herself, where the artist looks at herself from both sides of the mirror.” Walter Keller
