Island painter, illustrator and muralist Margot Datz turned 70 this year. As she reached the milestone, she found herself reflecting on her life as a woman — what she refers to as the complicated, magical experience of femininity.
On Saturday, August 5, Ms. Datz shares a series of paintings at the Grange Hall in a one-day show that depict variations of what she calls “female essence.” The exhibit is titled Mothers, Maidens, and Mistresses.
Ms. Datz spends most of her time working on mural commissions throughout the year, painting her own interpretations of other’s visions. But her annual art show, she said, is an opportunity to focus on herself.
“I paint from where I’m at this year,” she said. “And this year, I’ve been thinking about womanhood.”
Divided into three phases, the womanhood Ms. Datz represents is dynamic, it is multilayered and it is vast.
“A mistress is a master at something,” Ms. Datz said. “I like that idea of feminine independent mastery. To me the maiden is our innocent self who is experiencing life at its beginnings with dreams ahead. And most women I know mother something, whether it’s a child, an animal or the world. These are all energies that women bless the world with.”
Inspired by the Flemish masters of oil painting, much of Ms. Datz’s work explodes with rich colors, fantastical and spiritual images and expressive portraits. She is working on a series of female figures for each month, creating archetypes that pull together feminine phases and the passage of time. October, she said, is the temptress.
“Each month is another facet of my heart, of my soul,” she said. “Women are so wonderfully multifaceted.”
A Still Life in the Garden of Eden is influenced by two pioneers of women in art: Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keeffe.
“It’s a real woman still life,” Ms. Datz said of the piece. “It’s various fruits cut open, revealing their seeds and juice.”
Ms. Datz said the show also depicts the many different ways that womanhood manifests over time, in nature and in the individual.
“Each one of us is just our own package, and we’re allowed to express it with clothes and with words and we don’t have to be burned at the stake anymore,” she said. “We are allowed to share what’s on our mind and write books and choreograph bold moves. It’s a wonderful time to be a woman. To be a woman, now, is to be allowed to be complex.”
The one-day show of Mothers, Maidens, and Mistresses takes place at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury from 4 to 8 p.m. on August 5.
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