The Goddess Strikes Back

Ideas and visions belong to a constant push and pull of various ideologies and movements that define our human history and the canon of art. In this endless waltz, the color pink as the potent symbol for femininity finally reclaims her throne, as seen in Emma Hapner’s solo exhibition at the Warnes Contemporary, titled, “All’s Fair.”

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How does Emma Hapner, a woman artist, unpack and re-present the female nude, a subject that has had a long tail of prior traditions in Western art, often from the male perspective? How is her painting a critical re-examination of the traditional bias against the “decorative” and the “illustrational” in painting? How does the artist challenge the centuries of inequality within the binary way of thinking, between the light and the darkness, between the man and the woman, and lastly in the form of culture versus nature? 

 

“The Wild Unicorn” (2025) is a potent symbol of femininity and feminine beauty for Hapner. When encountering such a powerful and mysterious creature, one cannot help but choose between the acceptance to let the unicorn go or the desire to trap the unicorn. The unicorn is a magical phenomenon of nature, which was characterized by abundant and deep forests before industrialization and population growth around the world. The magic of the unicorn lies within its freedom because the unicorn is a consensual beast that allows itself to be seen by those chosen lucky few. Without the consent of the unicorn to be seen, the unicorn cannot be seen. Even in the case that the unicorn is “caught,” the magic of the moment will go away, the thief will be poked through by the unicorn’s horn, and the unicorn will escape. The unicorn’s horn was believed to be very deadly and endowed with healing properties in medieval times, and the symbol of the unicorn was related to the ideas of purity, chastity, and innocence. It is without coincidence that Hapner would depict a unicorn, possibly as a self-portrait and a symbol of the traits that are considered important to women even to this day, in some parts of the world.

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Hapner’s major work titled, “Love is Patient” (2024), reminds the viewer of the painting titled, “Nymphs and Satyr” (1873), by Bouguereau, due to their similar compositions involving female figures in energetic poses that contribute to an elated atmosphere. The most noticeable difference between the two works, however, lies in the fact that Hapner’s painting lacks a male figure that the female figures are supposed to please and whose objectifying gaze they would be subjected to. As all the female figures in Hapner’s works are the artist herself, they subject one another to a form of self-gaze. This follows a key realization that when the feminine self is the center of her self-pleasure and gaze it can be very liberating for women, who traditionally were pressured to perform to please under the male gaze. 

 

What does Hapner see in herself, or is it herself as a woman and a mortal? Quite possibly, Hapner’s self-gaze initially involves the recognition of her own youthful and feminine beauty translating to the self-empowering accumulation of a feminine identity or ego. While gender exists on a spectrum, and there is no way to clearly define the feminine identity, one can sense Hapner’s idea of her feminine self as having a multitude of traits, one of which is exceptional beauty and the others, (emotional and scholarly) intellect, passion, and grace. Feminine beauty in particular involves the colors magenta, pink, or purple, which are simultaneously ethereal and eternal colors. These colors are in opposition to green, blue, or cyan, which could be interpreted as more masculine colors. These are the ingredients for Hapner’s eventual transcendence and transformation into a goddess through her quests in painting. The goddess is an eternal and divine beauty, both complex and contradictory, and involves the convergence of the transitory and the eternal or the infinite qualities within feminine beauty.  

 

It is no secret that men throughout history were in awe of women’s beauty, which translates to power. Some societies, such as those amongst the Native Americans, were matriarchal, as in the case of Crow People led by the Woman Chief (1806-1854). Other people in the Middle East and Europe worshipped goddesses and did not conform to heterosexual gender roles and sexuality before the Indo-European warring cultures and Semitic-speaking peoples conquered those areas. According to Joseph Campbell, the war in the Bronze Age subdued the goddess and placed her as a second-class citizen in the mythology populated by male heroes and gods. 

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Looking at Hapner’s “War” (2025) and “Love” (2025), one cannot help but be amazed by the artist’s metaphorical thinking behind these two opposing concepts, which she equates as mirror images of one another. War usually results in occupation by an external force, dividing the participants into dominant and submissive sides. Love also involves conquest but from within, and love is often an unequal relationship, with dominant and submissive partners. Looking at these two tall, powerful figures in the self-image of the artist, one cannot help but be in awe of their aura and submit oneself in the gesture of love, as if facing a goddess or a woman Buddha.

 

Hapner has permitted herself to do through the metaphorical act of painting the impossible in the physical reality - transcend her physical limitation as a human being and reimagine herself as a goddess. “Venus Volatilus” (2025), which means the “transitory or volatile Venus,” depicts her holding an arrow glazed in a love potion and a fruit (most likely an apple). Her head glows with a halo like a saint or an angel, and she is framed by a series of mini illustrations of her feats as a goddess, and the allies and foes that she encountered. The entire painting is a contemporary reinterpretation of the goddess through the medieval, the rococo, and the contemporary lens or presentation. At the moment that Hapner completed this painting, she could see herself in the painting as if she were looking in the mirror.

 

In that very moment, Hapner achieves internal peace and self-acceptance through the vehicle of painting that allows her to become a goddess, in the brief, transitory phase of eternal transformation and growth. No matter the naysayers and the doubters in a patriarchally-dominated world. Hapner discovers a hidden gem, a truth for herself, in the depths of the mirror inside, one of equality, power, and liberation for herself and all women.