In May 2013, I received news that genuinely moved me: one of my artworks had been selected for Women's Rights: An Artist's Perspective, an online juried exhibition sponsored by UniteWomen.org in support of women's rights and the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. At the time, the show felt urgent. Thirteen years later, it feels even more so. The parallels between 2013 and today are impossible to ignore, and if anything, the need for exhibitions like this one has only grown.
About the Exhibition
Women's Rights: An Artist's Perspective opened in May 2013 as an online juried exhibition bringing together artists whose work speaks to the ongoing struggle for women's equality, representation, and rights. The exhibition was organized by UniteWomen.org, a grassroots organization dedicated to advancing women's rights and the passage of the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, which would constitutionally guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex.
Jurors: Karen Teegarden, CEO/President of UniteWomen.org; Renée Davis, Vice-Chair, Board of Directors; Patricia M. Gil, former VP of Operations; and Karen Gutfreund, Curator, VP and National Exhibitions Director of the Women's Caucus for Art (WCA).
The work shown here is from my figurative practice, exhibited at Women's Rights: An Artist's Perspective in 2013. My current work explores geometric abstraction and mixed media on paper.
Why Women Artists Still Need These Platforms
In 2013, the conversation about women's representation in the art world was already overdue. Women make up the majority of art school graduates yet remain significantly underrepresented in major museum collections, gallery representation, and auction records. The work of women artists is still systematically undervalued in price, in critical attention, and in institutional support. More than a decade later, that gap has narrowed in some places and widened in others.
Exhibitions like this one matter because visibility matters. When women artists are given platforms that are juried, curated, and intentional, it shifts the conversation. It says: this work exists, it is serious, and it deserves to be seen.
The Parallels to Today
When this exhibition opened in May 2013, the ERA had not yet been ratified. The conversation around women's rights, including reproductive rights, equal pay, and representation in positions of power, felt like unfinished business from another era. In 2026, that conversation has become urgent in ways that would have been difficult to predict even then. Rights that felt settled are being reconsidered. Protections that felt permanent are being challenged. The ERA still has not been fully enshrined in the Constitution.
Art has always been one of the most honest responses to political and social upheaval. It doesn't argue; it bears witness. It doesn't persuade through logic alone. It moves people through feeling, through image, through the particular truth that only a made object can carry. In a moment when women's voices are being contested in legislatures and courtrooms, having them amplified in exhibition spaces, both online and physical, feels more important than ever.
These shows are not just cultural events. They are acts of documentation. They say: women were here, women made this, women's perspectives shaped this moment in history. That was true in 2013. It is true now.
Geometric Abstract Art as a Political Act
My geometric abstractions and mixed media paintings on paper don't announce their politics. They don't need to. The act of a woman artist claiming space, on a canvas, in an exhibition, in a collection, is itself a kind of statement. The bold geometric forms, the unapologetic color, the compositions that refuse to be quiet: these are not accidental choices. They come from a practice built on the belief that women's creative vision deserves to take up space without apology.
The piece I exhibited in 2013 came from my figurative practice, a body of work that laid the groundwork for the geometric abstractions I create today. Being selected for Women's Rights: An Artist's Perspective in 2013 was an honor I didn't take lightly then. Reflecting on it now, in a political climate that has made the show's themes more relevant rather than less, I feel that weight even more clearly. It places my work in a lineage of women artists who have used their practice to insist on their own visibility and on the visibility of all women.
The Equal Rights Amendment: Still Unfinished Business
The ERA, first introduced in Congress in 1923, has never been fully ratified into the U.S. Constitution. Its simple language, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex," remains constitutionally unprotected. In 2026, that fact is not a historical footnote. It is a live political reality with direct consequences for women's lives.
Art cannot pass legislation. But it can change the culture that shapes legislation. And culture, in the end, is what determines what a society believes is possible. That's why shows like Women's Rights: An Artist's Perspective, organized in 2013 and resonant in 2026, are not relics. They are blueprints.
Support Women Artists
One of the most direct ways to support women artists is to collect their work. Original art by women artists remains undervalued relative to work by their male counterparts, which means that collecting now is both a meaningful act of support and, for many collectors, a sound long-term investment.
If you're looking for original geometric abstract paintings by a woman artist, work made with intention, rigor, and a clear point of view, I'd invite you to explore my collection.
Commission an Original Work
Interested in a custom painting that carries this kind of intention? Learn more about commissioning an original painting — a one-of-a-kind work made specifically for your space and story.
