Svetlana K-Lie’s series ‘Woman as Meat’. At first this series of photographs was created to depict women in Russia, used as cattle and weren’t treated equally, however, as this series progressed, K-Lié realised that this is not only about women but children as well, who are used and abused and adults see them as a way to fulfil their desires, in different kinds of senses.
K-Lié's comments on her series 'Woman as Meat', and how it ties in with her 'Women Series 2019'.
"I like women. I look at women as whole, finished beings, and recreate many stereotypical male images as female. I enjoy this, it’s sublime, beautiful, interesting. And the modern day gives women a lot of power, and I give ‘my women’ a certain type of power. If we are talking about the sculpture ‘woman as a table’ from ‘Transformation of Women’, here her power lays in the anarchy, as Jesus says at the last supper, ‘i am the bread, eat me’ and woman as a table says ‘i am bread, you eat off of me. you eat me’ and in that is power, nourish, growth. It’s power in anarchy, Jesus gives himself away but that his power, he rules over the world, he sets a tone for the rest of the world. On the other hand we have the meat series, which portrays how women, and I ,later realised, children are taken advantage of. Woman is a creator, she has a womb, she as space inside like a cosmos, in which she creates a child and women, in my eyes, are the highest creators. I have many arguable points in my art, where I put women above men, but i enjoy the company of women and their beauty and for me, the world of women is comforting and understandable, because I myself am a woman and I can portray it well, accurately even because I live in it myself. I see everything in a minimum and a maximum, night and day, inhale and exhale, who’s more important?
I am interested in women, how they think, how they are made, why they do what they do, what role in society can she have, what mask in society can she wear, in how many directions she can thrive. I sing an order to women by my works, about the beauty of women, the artwork and creations of women, and how perfectly a women can grow in many different directions, she can be proud of herself, can reproduce, can eat, drink, can devour, can kill, can give birth to, can love. Women can do everything. It is empowerment, my art is a giant empowerment for women. I enjoy this and I feel power in myself and I understand that this power is in other women too. I sing an order to women through my works to be as such, on the earth and in the universe, in sculpture and painting, in photography and sketches. It is just important for me that women become a full, accepted member of society, that she would stop being a dog, that she would stop being ‘man’s best friend’, a Russian idiom, I am sick and tired of all this and I want to destroy and to recreate women as a creator, women can do all, women can produce, can shit, can love, can do everything and this is the 21st century."
