The Anatomy Lesson Documents

I'm resuming work on the first panel of The Anatomy Lesson Triptych, the first painting of The Anatomy Lesson body of work I started in December last year. Progressing on the other pieces, paintings, sculpture, prints and book art, I decided to go in again and add more detail to that first work. The painting refers to the cover illustration of the 1543 syllabus 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem,' on which anatomist Andreas Vesalius is portrayed during an anatomical demonstration. The Anatomy Lesson is a feminist body of work addressing the way women's bodies were/are approached in art and science. 

The works are sort of a spin-off from an #OBJECT! painting I made in 2017. That series consists of poster-like paintings of women and girls sourced from images and stories on the web and in written media. The works 'portray' real women and girls as they are experiencing everyday sexism, inequality, gender based violence. The series paintings are in one of the galleries on my site here. The particular piece I'm talking about was made as the Trump care bill was being written in the Senate by 13 men, not one woman. If you look closely, you might recognise Bannon, Kushner and Stephen Miller in the painting. The bill would deny women access to the full range of reproductive health care options fundamental to women’s economic security. Protests noted that being woman was viewed in that bill as a pre-existing condition and that the bill inferred a return to a kind of regressive gender politics in which men make the decisions about what happens to women’s bodies. 

In the newspaper today an article discusses what the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsberg might entail for Roe versus Wade, the historic 1973 judgment that legalised abortion in the US, if Trump manages to get a third Supreme Court judge, resulting in a conservative six-to-three majority.
Coincidentally, or not, in my country Belgium, the amended abortion legislation, initiated in 2016 (!), relaxing the legal period given to pregnant women before proceeding to abortion from 12 to 18 weeks, will be sent to the House Justice Committee. This as a condition for the participation of the Flemish Christian Democrats in the next federal government, after the May 2019 (!) elections. The party fervently opposes the revision. The legislation is thereby put on hold, to ensure that parliament cannot vote on and ratify it just yet.
​
I guess 'the personal is very much political' in terms of women's bodies.