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  Artist: Annette Bezor March 4, 2001 Producer : Marianne Latham  When artist Rosemary Valadon was looking for a subject to sit for her painting of Aphrodite, she asked fellow artist Annette Bezor. Annette was flattered, and acceded to the request, mainly because one of the other sitters in the series of goddesses was Germaine Greer.Annette's own paintings are almost entirely of beautiful women. "She's looking at the feminine mystique," says Melbourne gallery owner Robert Lindsay. "What is it that society demands of women ... the cultural imperatives that make a woman beautiful?" Apart from being executed on enormous canvases, Annette's paintings are compelling because of the subject matter. Her current series features well-known images of woman, such as Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa and Tretchikoff's green Asian lady, but their appearances are slightly altered. Sometimes Anglo eyes are Asianised, and vice versa.  "The choice of the images is to look at the archetype, to get you in," she says, "...to get you to say, 'I know that image'. But if you change it and change it to the point where it's slightly distorted, it makes you readjust."Another feature of Annette's work is that she paints two of each image. "You say, 'What is different about it and why are there two images?' Maybe it's a comment. You know when you look at things and you get the absolute? There is one position... You should change around and see things in a different way." As part of the South Australian Living Artists Week, it was decided, along with the government, to produce a book on a South Australian artist every year, and Annette Bezor is the first artist to have a book published on her work. According to Adelaide art gallery owner Paul Greenaway, "It was to use an artist with the potential for a national and international career, and Annette was an obvious contender and then recipient of that book." |
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