Multigenerational Feminism: Sue Williams & Charlotte Fox Present Unspeakable & Pushing My Heels Into The Dirt at 303 Gallery
- Fiona Donovan
- Dec 2, 2024
- 4 min read
As I entered the 303 Gallery, I was immediately struck by the interplay between two generations of feminist art: Sue Williams’ Unspeakable and Charlotte Fox’s Pushing My Heels Into The Dirt. These concurrent exhibitons present a negotiation of feminist perspectives between a mother and daughter through bold abstraction and provocative realism. Sue Williams, known for her critiques against misogyny, presents an evolution of her artistic voice by weaving historical references and personal memories into her works. Meanwhile, her daughter Charlotte Fox offers a raw, modern lens on objectification, blurring the lines between desire and connection through surrealist compositions. Williams speaks to the physicality of the feminist struggle, while Fox grapples with the commodification of the female body in an era of perpetual, digital spectatorship. The exhibition offers insight into generational shifts in activist discourse, and the differing ways artists address systemic oppression and objectification.
Sue Williams has been an established figure in feminist art, emerging in the 1980s with works that utilize humor and confrontation to share her perspective. Often using explicit or cartoonish imagery and sarcastic text, Williams addresses topics including gender inequality, emotional abuse, and sexual violence. Her oeuvre shifted to encompass the abstracted works seen in Unspeakable, where linear shapes transform into fragmented bodies to create chaotic compositions. Williams’ works reveal layers of complexity, drawing inspiration from the Abstract Expressionist movement while simultaneously critiquing social norms. Her commitment to painting, a medium historically dominated by men, facilitates her simultaneous challenging and reimagination of traditional depictions of femininity, aligning her with artists like Judy Chicago and Louise Bourgeois while forging a path uniquely her own. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, and many more, solidifying her a prominent position in the feminist art scene.
Williams’ daughter, Charlotte Fox, steps into the art world with her own distinct narrative while drawing from her mother’s legacy. Born 1994 in New York City, Fox then attended the School of Art Institute of Chicago, graduating in 2016, where she explored themes of desire, repulsion, and fantasy. Her surrealist oil paintings blur the boundaries between intimacy and detachment, embodying a modern approach to feminist theories. By merging vintage media and layered imagery, Fox critiques the commodification of the female form in an era dominated by visual consumption. The works question not only how the female form is consumed, but also how the individual constructs identity amidst this consumption.
The viewer is initially enveloped by the charged vibrancy of Sue Williams large-scale abstractions in Unspeakable. Her large canvases present chaotic swaths of color that upon closer inspection reveal hidden figures, limbs, and objects, exhibiting a work teetering between abstraction and figuration. In Designer Sack (2024), Williams uses hues of green, blue, orange, and pink to create an almost anatomical terrain of intertwining shapes, where organic curves suggest bodily forms that are fractured and reassembled. Her seemingly spontaneous use of paint transforms into an intricate web of narratives, inviting the viewer to delve deeper into the entangled forms. Central to the composition is the flipped word “HE”, and hints at her ongoing critique of gendered power structures. The work challenges the viewer to reconsider how language and imagery perpetuate patriarchal dominance.
Sue Williams (1954 - )
Designer Sack, 2024
Oil on Canvas
50 x 60 inches
Proceeding to the “Project Room” of 303 Gallery, Charlotte Fox’s intimate and surreal oil paintings are presented in Pushing My Heels Into The Dirt. Spellbound (2024) confronts the viewer with a blurred, nude female figure bent over in a provocative manner that both invites and critiques the male gaze. Painted in a palette dominated by greens and blues, the composition is punctuated by a stark red square featuring the image of a horse, a motif that disrupts the scopophilic tendencies of the viewer. The central placement of this horse reclaims the gaze and transforms the act of looking into one of reflection and unease. Through this work, Fox questions voyeurism and objectification, raising unsettling questions about the role of the artist and the viewer in perpetuating these dynamics. Her blending of figurative elements with surreal disruptions mirrors her mother’s approach to embedding critique within layered imagery but shifts the focus to the commodification of identity in a hyper-visual culture.
Charlotte Fox (1994 - )
Spellbound, 2024
Oil on Canvas
30 x 30 inches
Together, the exhibitions offer an intergenerational dialogue, utilizing abstraction and surrealism to address the evolving challenges of femininity in a patriarchal society. The mother-daughter relationship provides a unique insight to the transforming societal contexts where Williams’ works expose the physical objectification and inequalities of her era, while Fox responds to a world increasingly shaped by visual and digital economies, where objectification is both overt and subliminal. This evolution demonstrates how each generation adapts its critique to address both persistent and emerging forms of oppression, transforming acts of resistance without losing its fundamental beliefs. Their shared exhibition at 303 Gallery not only underscores these themes, but also illustrates a familial and artistic continuity that redefines how femininity is represented and reclaimed over time. For me, the works of Williams and Fox underscore the importance of maintaining this dialogue across generations—an unyielding resistance to the forces that seek to commodify, silence, or diminish the female experience. Their art is not only a testament to their personal journeys but also a call to action for a collective reimagining of gender, identity, and power.
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