Femininity Through the Ethereal: My Favorites on Artsy This Week
This week, I was drawn to a selection of works that explore femininity through the ethereal, blending softness with emotional depth and intensity. Each piece operates on a psychological level hovering between daydreams and reality. Instead of searching for fixed meaning, these works leave space for intuition and personal interpretation.
Days and Nights Have Mingled in Your Sweet Embrace, Orlando (2019) by Faye Wei Wei
Faye Wei Wei’s painting feels suspended in a dreamlike state where the viewer moves between familiarity and emotional ambiguity. Through a blend of flora, figures, and celestial forms, her pieces feel whimsical, existing somewhere between nostalgia and imagination.
Love Letter (2025) by Marc Dennis
Marc Dennis has an approach to softness that relies on precision, rendering florals with devotional attention to detail. His work feels intimate as the viewer is only shown a fragment of a larger scene. This restraint is reminiscent of an elusive memory, suggesting emotion through absence.
What Angel Wakes Me (2025) by Gill Button
Gill Button’s painting preserves a fragile psychological moment that feels partially formed rather than fully fledged. Thought emerges through flesh, and the softness of the palette adds a layer of vulnerability to the composition. Femininity here appears contemplative yet deeply stoic.
Not your babe (2025) by Douglas de Souza
Douglas de Souza’s work introduces a playful charm that exudes childlike nostalgia and defiance. Decorative elements and pastel tones dance around the canvas in a sweet yet subtly passive way. Femininity becomes more self aware as it teeters between innocence and assertion
Ultramarine Brain over Yellow Waters (2025) by Loie Hollowell
Loie Hollowell’s abstraction prioritizes psychological sensation over visual representation. Color and form function as emotional signals balancing inner rhythm. Femininity is expressed as an interior state and grounded in restraint.
Looking Towards (Merak) (2025) by Lanise Howard
Lanise Howard’s painting delivers femininity in an expansive yet celestial way. Framed by geometric forms and saturated color, the figure is somewhere between earthly delights and the cosmos. This work emits a calm presence, as if the figure exists in a gentle orbit between groundedness and transcendence.
Fault Line (2026) by Rachel MacFarlane
Rachel MacFarlene’s work exhibits expressive brushwork charged with emotional intensity. The composition is raw, as if it is capturing a psychological moment of release. Femininity is depicted in a vulnerable state.