An Inner Voice Liberated

Abstract

This article examines the works of Israeli woman artist Lilian Weisberger, who creates girlhood images that look naive at first glance but are nonetheless multilayered and radical. This examination of Weisberger’s girlhood images is done here for the first time. Applying the bricolage methodology, the investigation of her artwork is based on a visual analysis, in-depth interviews with Weisberger, and feminist theories relevant to girlhood studies combined with several concepts from the field of psychology. Three series are discussed: the dark-gloomy images, bodiless images, and the group of super-girls and defiant ones. These images represent two substantial parts of the girl’s soul—vulnerability versus intensity—while metaphorically materializing a feminist call for authenticity and wholeness of the girl, and eventually the woman. Weisberger’s art embodies a quest for liberating an inner voice through creation.