5 Female Artists From Around the World Who Celebrate Women in Their Work

International Women's Day is a great opportunity to celebrate the work of contemporary female visual artists around the world—especially since the art world is still overwhelmingly male and white.

Building a more gender-inclusive art world begins with recognizing the female artists who are already captivating their communities—and, in some cases, the art world at large—with dazzling and provocative work. In honor of International Women's Day, we've rounded up five of our favorite female artists from around the world who portray women in their work. (And if this inspires you, why not plan to make a visit to the National Museum of Women in the Arts next time you're in Washington, D.C.?)

Tschabalala Self

Harlem-born and New York and Connecticut-based artist Tschabalala Self has received international acclaim for her mixed-media representations of black female figures, smashing her auction record at Christie's last year and even inspiring Tome's Fall 2018 collection. “My primary objective is to create works that support the black and femme imagination,” Self has said.

Katarzyna Przezwańska

Born and still living in Warsaw, Poland, artist Katarzyna Przezwańska covers seemingly infinite ground with her primarily sculptural work, but playful renderings of women are one of her specialties; she uses found objects like shells and branches to represent everything from breasts to manicured nails.

Yishay Garbasz

Israel-born, Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist Yishay Garbasz's work concerns itself with everything from inherited trauma to skewering the art-world old guard, but her 2008–2010 project Becoming drew attention for its daring and scope; in the project, Garbasz chronciled the changes in her body one year before to one year after her gender affirmation surgery, making use of a human-scale zoetrope, and also published it as a flipbook.

Aliza Nisenbaum

Mexican-Jewish artist Aliza Nisenbaum was born in Mexico City and now lives and works in New York, where she's developed a cult following for her colorful paintings of Mexican and Central American migrants. A professor at Columbia University's School of the Arts, Nisenbaum doesn't limit herself entirely to painting female figures, but her portrayals of women and girls are intimate and carefully observed.

Sanam Khatibi

Born in Tehran, Iran and now based in Belgium, artist Sanam Khatibi is known for paintings, embroideries, tapestries, and sculptures that relate to gender roles and power imbalances between men and women. Wiry, naturalistic female figures populate her work, and she's been known to center her art around real-life subjects, as in The Murders of the Green River, which draws inspiration from serial killer Gary Ridgway's targeting of female sex workers.