CURRENT Exhibition

Jenny sharaf
blonde ambition

April 20 - May 27

Opening: Saturday, April 20, 6-9 pm
Event Invite

In this exhibition, Oakland-based artist Jenny Sharaf presents a body of works that use the discourse of blondeness to examine the tension between the feminist struggle of the 1970’s with today’s generation of young women.  During feminist’s second wave, women were fighting for equality in the workplace and a rejection of traditional sexual stereotypes.  But then where does that leave today’s women – who in many ways are still fighting for the same values, but without the same politicized environment to operate in?  Using the portrayal of blondes in Hollywood cinema, Sharaf constructs complex relationships between beauty, power and a new feminist ideal.   

When looking at Sharaf’s work, one cannot help but recall Laura Mulvey’s seminal essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1973).  In this work, Mulvey utilizes psychoanalytic theory to call for the end of the passive, objectified position of blondes in classic Hollywood films, such as Marilyn Monroe’s Lorelei from Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953).  Mulvey remarks that in order for women to gain equality, that they must demystify the stereotypical female figure – the object of the active male gaze – and instead that women should put forth a new way of looking in film that ruptures the narrative pleasures of classical Hollywood film.

The works included in Blonde Ambition take some of the ideas put forth by Mulvey but approach them from a fresh point of view, one of an artist who grew up a part of a generation of women who are disconnected from the struggle.  While her work spans multiple mediums including video, painting, graphic design and installation, the common thread in her work is the deconstruction of the Hollywood bombshell, literally and figuratively.  Whether it’s fragmenting representations of blondes her video kaleidoscopes or the simplicity of a tuft of blonde hair protruding from a canvas, Sharaf subverts the stereotypical portrayal of blondes in cinema in which they are objectified through a male gaze imposed upon them. 

Instead Sharaf chooses to cast her gaze within. A blonde looking at blondeness and all of the connotations that come along with it. She becomes an active participant in reimagining her blondes as symbols of a new kind of feminism - one in which representations of women are nuanced and fragmented.  The new feminism she puts forth is one that focuses less on a political struggle and instead presents an internal dialogue on what it means to be a woman. 

Jenny Sharaf is an artist, living in Oakland, CA.  Born and raised in Los Angeles, her work is always California-centric in its subject matter.  Themes of celebrity, television and blond babes are at the heart of the work.  Her work spans multiple mediums including video, drawing, printmaking and installation. 

www.jennysharaf.com