ANITA DESOTO

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Anita DeSoto’s recent paintings pay homage to the Baroque era while highlighting the ongoing struggle for women’s rights. In today’s world, where these rights are at risk, she says it is essential to revisit history and acknowledge the persecution women endured during witch hunts. Drawing inspiration from Baroque masters, her work challenges traditional gender roles, and invites viewers to question the portrayals of gender by European artists of the past. Full of movement and colour, these large-scale works ‘explode with an abundance of flowers, fruit, children and groups of women in their depiction of mythological narratives’.

 

Anita DeSoto lives in Waitati, Dunedin and has been exhibiting nationally for the past 20 years. She has a Master of Fine Arts and has been lecturing in drawing and painting at the Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic since 2004. DeSoto has been the recipient of several artist residencies, including the Leipzig International Art Program in Germany (2010), Aratoi Fellow (2012), artist-in-residence at the New Pacific Studios in Vallejo, San Francisco in (2014), and the William Hodges Fellowship, Southland (2018). Her paintings are held in the collections of Southland Art Foundation, Pah House, Auckland and Anderson Park Art Gallery Collection, Invercargill.