“In Australian arts media, 34% female artists, 61% male artists and 5% collaborations were the subject of feature articles and reviews. The covers included only 20% female artists and 80% male artists.”
The Countess Report 2014
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SHEILA’s projects aim to overturn systemic bias and improve gender balance in all sectors of Australian art, so that women artists have equal opportunities to male artists to fulfil their talents and potential.
SHEILA gives a voice to women artists past, present and future through a wide range of projects that will unfold as resources allow.
SHEILA will expand its programs to include more acquisitions, a Triennial Exhibition, scholarships and other activities to promote Australian women artists as funds allow.
CURRENT PROJECTS
SHEILA has three main areas of program focus:
Contemporary Women
Contemporary Women Artists
Supporting and celebrating contemporary women artists and addressing ongoing gender imbalance.
SHEILA supports and celebrates contemporary women artists through acquisitions, symposia , lectures and publications, and by sponsoring The Countess Report, a regular count of gender equality in contemporary art. This provides data to argue for reforms that ensure today’s women artists have equal access and representation.
The Countess Report 2014.
The Countess Report
The organisation The Countess Report has counted and published statistics about the participation of women in Australian contemporary art for over a decade. In 2015, with funding from the Cruthers Art Foundation, CoUNTess undertook research to uncover the ongoing gender inequalities in the visual arts in Australia using the year 2014. The subsequent Countess Report showed that women were under-represented in nine of the 10 key sectors of contemporary art, including in all state and national art collections and exhibitions, media coverage and art prizes. This count, which will be repeated every four years with assistance from Sheila, is helping change the landscape for Australian women artists.
A consequence of the under-representation is a lack of material on women artists to support primary and secondary school curricula, which sees women’s art often accounting for less than 15% of the curriculum in many states. Sheila hopes to change this by working with The CoUNTess Report to develop primary and secondary educational materials on women artists, including many from the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art.
Acquisitions
Sheila provides annual support to the University of Western Australia to make acquisitions by contemporary and modern women artists to add to the Cruthers Collection to recognise women artists and create a fuller picture of Australian women’s art history.
The SHEILA Lecture and Symposium
Recognising and celebrating women’s art and artists is at the core of Sheila’s ambitions. To achieve this Sheila will present an annual lecture and, where possible, an accompanying symposium featuring a scholar who has made an outstanding contribution to the world’s understanding of art by women. Hosted in partnership with a major art institution in a different Australian state each year, the lecture will raise the profile of women’s art.
To support one of these Projects, go to Support
FUTURE PROJECTS
“At a tertiary level (undergraduate and postgraduate) three-quarters of visual arts graduates are women, however, once students graduate there is a significant drop in the programming, participation and representation of women artists in the nation’s major institutions, public art events and in the commercial art market.” — The Countess Report 2014
As funding permits, SHEILA will deliver the following Projects
Rima Zabaneh, Street directory 2005, street directory with cut out pages, 30 x 23 x 3 cm, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, The University of Western Australia. Courtesy the artist.
Expansion of SHEILA Acquisition Fund
The Sheila Acquisition Fund is a fund to purchase and donate key artworks to UWA and other public collections throughout the country. It will allow for the growth of the Collection as the most significant multi-institutional collection of Australian women’s art with its founding collection at UWA. As well as collecting emerging and contemporary artists, the Acquisition Fund will enable Sheila to acquire historical artworks by Australian women artists as they and their work are rediscovered through the Into the Light project.
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Major Triennial Exhibition
This by-invitation exhibition will present bodies of work by mid career and senior Australian women artists whose work has often not received due recognition.
Digital Documentation Program
This program will capture digital recordings of senior Australian women artists whose lives and work have not been well documented to date.
Scholarships
Sheila will provide scholarships to students working in WA to research and write on the Collection and a biennial post-graduate scholarship, offered nationally, to research and write on women’s art.
Supporters
SHEILA acknowledges the traditional custodians of country, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures; and to Elders both past and present.