Self-Presentation of the Female Body in the Age of Selfies: Maria Lassnig and her “body-Awareness” Self-Portraits

Abstract

Austrian artist Maria Lassnig (1919-2014) is world-famous for her self-portraits and “body awareness” theory, and became one of the most important artists in the West after the war in 1945. Influenced by the patriarchal social background of that time, Lassnig created numerous self-portraits with creative and feminist political implications in response to the era in which she lived. Hers works have made great achievements in the field of artistic creation. In 1988, she became the first female artist to win the Austrian National Award. In 2013, she won the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale. Lassnig presents her self-portrait through “two ways of existence”, as “weird face” and “monster image”, which focuses on the female body and refuses to simply depict the appearance. In the age of selfies, where external beauty is recorded through technology, Lassnig’s paintings present hers inner multi-layered true feelings, becoming a more “perfect art”.