Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Faculty of Human Ecology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, 43400, Selangor, Malaysia
2
Department of History, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, History Department, University of Kharazmi, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Although women’s participation in the visual arts has increased substantially over the past century, their historical exclusion from dominant art-historical narratives remains insufficiently explained, particularly through comparative analyses of non-Western contexts. This study addresses this gap by comparing the representation of women in selected modern paintings by Iranian and Malaysian women artists. It examines how shared cultural expectations concerning gender intersect with distinct religious, historical, and sociopolitical contexts to shape women’s artistic visibility and self-representation. Employing a comparative art-historical approach and close visual analysis, the study explores themes, symbols, identities, and representations of women’s social roles in works from both contexts. The findings indicate that Iranian and Malaysian women artists use painting to negotiate tensions between cultural tradition and modernity, while challenging passive or idealized representations of women. Despite these commonalities, Iranian works more frequently foreground questions of social restriction, identity, and political experience, whereas Malaysian works more visibly negotiate cultural plurality, religious identity, domesticity, and modernization. These differences demonstrate that women’s artistic representation cannot be understood through a universal account of patriarchy or modernity. The study contributes to feminist and comparative art history by bringing Iranian and Malaysian women artists into closer dialogue and by showing how culturally specific artistic practices challenge the historical marginalization of women. It also highlights the importance of including women artists from diverse regions in art-historical curricula, exhibitions, and scholarly research.
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