Women Behaving Badly is Alicia Bourley Art’s fastest-selling series yet. It began with a quote attributed to Jane Goodall:
“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
That idea stayed with Alicia. How little does a woman have to do before she is considered too loud, too much, too opinionated, or simply difficult?
They’re not behaving badly
The women in these works are not behaving badly in any conventional sense. They are sitting quietly. Having a glass of wine. Existing calmly and completely unprovocatively.
And yet, somehow, that can be enough to unsettle expectation.
That is the tension at the centre of Women Behaving Badly. The series looks at the ridiculous double standard women encounter when the smallest acts of self-possession can be read as defiance. It asks why a woman simply existing on her own terms can be treated as a provocation.
Stillness, restraint and a little humour
There is no grand performance here. The works draw their power from stillness and restraint, with a sharp sense of humour running underneath. The joke is in the title. The women are doing so little, yet the world is so ready to find fault.
That contrast gives the series its charge. It is quietly funny, pointed, and entirely knowing. Women Behaving Badly doesn’t need to shout to make its point. It lets the absurdity speak for itself.
Explore the series
Each artwork invites you back to the same question: what, exactly, is so bad about a woman being calm, self-possessed, and entirely herself?
For collectors looking for bold feminine wall art, a statement art print, or large format canvas art in Australia, the Women Behaving Badly collection brings wit, tension and a quietly rebellious point of view to the wall.
© Alicia Bourley Art. All rights reserved.