British Artist Sarah Maple Receives Death Threats for Art About Feminism and Islam

Sarah Maple, Snow White the Scientist (2011).
Photo: via www.sarahmaple.com

British artist Sarah Maple’s work often deals with the complexity of her background: her father is white and British, her mother is an Iranian Muslim, and she attended a Catholic school.

Maple’s pro-feminist work became a topic of discussion in 2007 after she won Channel4/Saatchi Gallery’s New Sensations prize for emerging artists. Scroll through the artist’s website and you’ll find many of her self-portraits, in which she assumes a variety of poses and garb that some might call empowering and others might say is compromising: a baby’s outfit, a burka, a Snow White costume.

In the painting Menstruate with Pride (2010), she wears a white dress with a blood stain at the crotch as she raises a fist, surrounded by a crowd of disgusted onlookers.

Sarah Maple, Menstruate with Pride (2010). Photo: via www.sarahmaple.com

Sarah Maple, Menstruate with Pride (2010).
Photo: via www.sarahmaple.com

Maple has released a new book, You Could Have Done This, that includes an image of the artist dressed in a hijab as she cradles a pig. “That’s the one that got the main abuse,” the artist told the Guardian. “Someone threw a brick through my window. Then I started getting death threats. I like to think I can say what I want, but perhaps, deep down, it did scare me off addressing those things. It’s a form of silencing.”

Despite the threats and her fears of self-censorship, Maple will create new works about freedom of speech for an exhibition in 2016, according to her website.

Sarah Maple, Signs (2007). Photo: via www.sarahmaple.com

Sarah Maple, Signs (2007).
Photo: via www.sarahmaple.com


Follow Artnet News on Facebook:


Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.

Share

Article topics
Subscribe or log in to read the rest of this content.

You are currently logged into this Artnet News Pro account on another device. Please log off from any other devices, and then reload this page continue. To find out if you are eligible for an Artnet News Pro group subscription, please contact [email protected]. Standard subscriptions can be purchased on the subscription page.

Log In