Reading the Works of Afifa Aleiby based on the theories of Lucy Irigaray

 
 
 
 
Throughout history, the subject of woman, as one of the important visual elements in all arts, has been influenced by the social and political issues of the society and has been manifested in different ways. Artists have used this component in different ways to recount the lost identity of women and its disappearance behind the patriarchal discourse prevalent in the society. Many painters such as Afifa Aleiby -one of the contemporary Iraqi artists- has used the female component to show the position of women in the society and has depicted this component from different perspectives, and in fact, many of these works evokes feminist theories in the form of paintings. By looking at Afifa's works, you can see that she is influenced by the culture and thought of her place of life and the current pains and sufferings in her homeland. This impressionability is gradually combined with her thoughts and learnings from western artists and new elements enter her works. In this regard, many intellectuals in every period of history have tried to recover the social position of women and have presented their own theories. Lucy Irigaray, one of the French philosophers and psychoanalysts, examines the exclusion of women from the patriarchal language in order to find alternative forms of feminine writing that allow women to introduce themselves to themselves, because women in the patriarchal discourse are always defined as a passive and dependent identity and are excluded from the realm of culture. From her point of view, the sexual identity of women is independent, unique and reliant on the embodied experiences of women, and in her studies, she tries to find a worthy description of the close relationship between gender and language, as well as a positive definition of identity for women in which women are no longer defined based on lack. Even in simple matters such as the use of male pronouns in cases where no specific gender is intended, the language crystallizes the male tendency. The avoidance of women from having an active role is the result of a philosophy that determines the characteristics of femininity and their acceptance of these methods. Therefore, women are deprived of access to language and as a result, they are in danger of suffering from psychosis and being trapped in a private language. She has focused her main goal not on the definition of the feminine essence but on the definition of the radical ethics of gender difference. According to Irigaray, in the western tradition, "woman" is defined as another man, and the position of femininity is determined based on male standards. Dealing with the problem of how identity is formed and its definition in the discourse of science and philosophy is one of the themes of post-structuralist feminism, which tries to overcome the limitations of reductionist theories. Irigaray points to two distinct identity stages in the process of human social-individual life in order to explain how female identity is overshadowed by male identity. The pre-linguistic stage that during this period, the child is in close contact with the mother, and because he has not yet entered the community, he identifies with his mother. The next stage, or the linguistic stage, is when the child gets to know his father and moves away from the maternal sphere or the pre-linguistic stage, and therefore establishes a new identity for himself. On the other hand, in Irigaray's philosophical view, the body and its morphology are the central point, her emphasis is on the fact that the release of one's gender by the autonomous being when she is writing or speaking in a familiar style, causes the disappearance of femininity in the discourse becomes masculine. The current research, which was carried out in a descriptive-analytical way, first defines Irigaray's theories in the field of deconstructing the definitions related to female identity, and then reads the works of the Iraqi artist, Afifa Aleiby, whose female figure is one of the main components in her paintings are presented based on Lucy Irigaray's point of view in order to answer the question, what are the similarities between Lucy Irigaray's theories and Afifa Aleiby's works, and how can her works be analyzed from this point of view? The results of the research indicate that with the definitions given by Lucy Irigaray about women's identification, many cases in Afifa Aleiby's paintings can be compared with these theories. According to Irigaray's belief, throughout history, a woman has never received a position that is appropriate to her dignity from the society and has always been a symbol of representing something other than herself, or has been seen as an object to fulfill the desire of men. This issue and cliché concept can be seen in Afifa's works. In many of her paintings, this artist has depicted women while they are busy doing everyday tasks, which is in accordance with the image that society has made of women in their minds. A large part of Afifa's works is devoted to the responsibility of taking care of the child and fulfilling the needs of the man. Female gender and then being a mother becomes important in the bed of sexual difference and female metaphysics. Mother is the first interlocutor of women and a person of their own gender, but this has been influenced by the patriarchal thought and needs a new language to shape the relationship between mother and child as an independent subject. In western thinking, the father-son relationship is preferred over the mother-daughter relationship, which causes women to be alienated from their sexual identity and the mother-child relationship is forgotten. According to Irigaray, as a result of looking at women as a tool, women are trapped in stereotypical roles such as virgin, prostitute, mother, or a combination thereof. A noteworthy point in Afifa's works is the way of showing pictures of mothers who are breastfeeding or hugging a child, which is drawn in a sacred way, like the figures of Virgin Mary and Jesus. Other elements that Afifa used along with the main figures are generally reminiscent of the content of the Bible and related to the expulsion of women from heaven and the purity and virginity of women, which can evoke Irigaray's last view. Representations of the female body and their portrayal as an attractive creature is a perfect example of objectification, either as a symbol and illustration of classical beauty or as a representation of the sensuality and desires of the male audience. It comes According to Irigaray's belief, when the female body is the focus of storytelling, taking into account its relationship with matter, body and mortality, the inner and disturbing parts of the body deserve attention for artistic expression. Rejecting and removing the female imagination definitely puts the woman in a position to experience herself only in a piecemeal way, in the less structured margins of the prevailing ideology, as wastes or mirror additions that the male subject reflecting and doubling the self-expressed and purely sexual to fulfill male desires, perhaps it can be concluded that the naked bodies in Afifa's works are not sexualized as a concept, but it has been used in its paradoxical sense and to show this common sexual view of women. On the other hand, breaking the norms about the known standards about the external beauty of women has always been done by feminist artists. Society has set demarcated norms for women's appearance, which are based on beauty and neatness, modesty and cleanliness. Women also follow these ideal bodies chosen for them. But in front of all these, there are feminist artists who, by breaking these rules, reverse the traditional aesthetics expected by everyone in the naked body. In addition, this violation of norms is not only limited to the naked body, but also includes other details of women's appearance. Just as Afifa has shown this contrast in her paintings. She has depicted women in the simplest possible way, contrary to the aesthetic definitions of women in everyone's mind, she has depicted them with short hair and without makeup and jewelry. Afifa, unlike many of the works of painting that depict slim and thin women, most of the women depicted by Afifa have full and relatively large bodies, which is also contrary to the common aesthetics of society in relation to women.