Artist Emily Moore’s print draws inspiration from the story that, in 1912, Elizabeth Arden distributed red lipstick to suffragettes marching for the right to vote. The gesture, small but symbolically charged, reframed lipstick as an emblem of defiance rather than decoration.

Across the composition, Moore incorporates the phrase: “Woman (Ooman) noh fi paint up dem lip wid war paint” — Jamaican patois for “women are not supposed to wear lipstick on their lips.”

The statement exposes the policing of women’s appearance and expression across cultures. By placing this phrase at the centre of the work, the artist Emily Moore highlights how patriarchal control operates globally—shaping who is permitted visibility, voice and self-definition.

In Moore’s hands, lipstick becomes more than cosmetic. It functions as metaphor: for speech, for dissent, for the right to occupy space publicly. The red mark shifts from adornment to declaration.

Having witnessed the erasure of many women artists from art historical narratives, particularly women of colour, Emily Moore’s practice remains attentive to how race, gender and class intersect in systems of exclusion. This print extends that inquiry, translating historical reference and lived experience into a bold, declarative image.

Produced in a strictly limited edition of 100, the work is available exclusively through Ellipsis Prints

Learn more about artist Emily Moore