Five Women Artists

Great women have made amazing art throughout history - wherever you look you'll find it. Let's take a look at the bigger picture and the many fantastic women who change the art world forever.

Sonia Boyce explores her sense of self through images of blackness and whiteness in the media. Her artwork questions how we look at and think about black women's bodies. Using video, photography, installations and more she creates work within communities across the UK.

Barbara Hepworth is one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century. She was fascinated by the curves of nature - like this artwork, Pelagos ,which captures the feeling of watching waves and rolling hills. She liked her sculptures to be placed in the landscape so you can see the view beyond.

Yayoi Kusama has been called the 'princess of polka dots'. As a girl she had visions of dots on a tablecloth, multiplying until they were all around her. Her art, which can come out of panic and anxiety, is perhaps so popular because it's filled with wonder love and joy.

Georgia O'Keeffe is one of the 20th century's best love painters. She painted flowers so close up that they look like abstract shapes and forms. With their warm and cool colours and overwhelming size, they become, as she said 'your world for the moment'

As well as the shapes of rolling hills and flowers, O'Keeffe was also fascinated by the bones and skulls she found in the desert near where she lived. O'Keeffe was a force of nature. Even when she lost her sight, she carried on making art with the help of her assistants.

Dayanita Singh subjects range from families at home to abandoned rooms full of paper. Singh is an artist who works with photographs. She lives and works in India and her art has been exhibited around the world. You can see her work in major galleries but she has also put her books in shop windows, and given them to strangers in the street.

These are just a few of the many inspirational women artists who challenge the way we think about art. Women have been making art for millennia - from painting and sculpture to performance and photography. Centuries of discrimination have meant that many have not received the recognition they deserved, or even the opportunity to study work or fulfil their true creative potential.

Women artists have sought to explore issues of identity, politics and history to develop our understanding of what art is and can be. What will women make in the future? Who knows- see where your inspiration takes you!