I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

-Kahlo

Self-portraiture began during the Renaissance, it was the first time artist were regarded as more than craftsmen, their personalities became of interest and they painted from the heart more than by rote or command. But that was only reality for men, women artists seemingly did not exist, save as bodies, exalted goddesses objectified, Madonna or whorrzed.

Women have just in the last 400 years or so been recognized, named, acknowledged beyond being subjects of paintings. This development in art is a reflection of women's emergence from the shadows in all of life. Women are now on the stage, men no longer portray them unless it's a drag show, an entire medical speciality is dedicated to them, gynecology/obstetrics, fashion is made to accentuate the female form- yet, women are still not in control. Medications are now marketed to eliminate menstruation to make us sexually available all the time, clothes to expose our form to satisfy even men we do not know and "stages" provide men an opportunity to see and do what by law they cannot: rape and murder.

But where are the great female contemporary artists of today, of note? They live and breathe, but are overshadowed by their sisters who sell themselves as [sic] pornified art. Performance artists who drizzle themselves with mud and "models" who lay defeated in any pose. While men were able to navigate the cult-of-personality culture the Renaissance bred,women had to become a stereotype, worse an object. Female artists became the mirror, emerged as whatever society wanted to see.