Kayl Parker

Being an artist in America isn't easy, and being a female artist is even more difficult. But from photographers to painters to musicians, women across the country are changing the face of feminism in the art world—and it's amazing. Here are seven totally badass female artists that we'd love to get a coffee (or a drink) with.  Molly Matalon I dare you to scroll through Matalon’s website or blog without thinking “damn, this babe is cool.” Some of her best pieces are those that aggressively reclaim the way women are photographed. One self-portrait of hers—in which she photographs herself topless in a mirror—is reminiscent of Manet’s Un bar aux Folies Bergére (and also of Jeff Wall’s Picture for Women). The image is beautiful, and also cheekily eliminates the need for the “male genius,” a latent idea in the arts that all female artists have to struggle against. Simply put, Matalon is a champion. Moira Quinn O’Neil O’Neil’s commissioned textile designs are crazy amazing, and her personal work features the likes of Beavis & Butthead, Laura Palmer and E.T. If this is any indication of her actual TV interests, I’d like to maybe bypass coffee and start binge watching a few shows with O’Neil, preferably on a couch covered in her custom blankets. Leah Ball and Chelsea Ross (of FAF) Like many important social movements gaining steam lately, feminism needs voices. In Chicago, Leah Ball and Chelsea Ross have started the campaign "Feminist as Fuck" to act as a documentation of the face

One of the reasons Chicago's art community is so appealing is its acceptance of experimentation and its hunger for revolution. The way people view photography is changing, too. These six Chicago-based artists are changing the way the medium is both presented and digested. Alexandria Eregbu Never exclusively labeled a photographer (multidisciplinary), Eregbu wanders the landscape of her personal and racial history. She produces work that makes the viewer feel something, despite cultural class or background. Her latest project, Black Object/White Smoke, hits on just that. You can find pieces from the project at her current show, tide/tithe with Rami George at Roots & Culture, through May 14.  Liz Ensz As the photographic medium evolves, artists like Ensz reconcile the derivation by blurring the line between photography and sculpture. Ensz sits on the dividing line between these two mediums, questioning the function of both. She's currently an "Artist in Residence" at Latitude Chicago and is the associate director at The Visitors Center Artist Camp in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Ryan Lowry Lowry’s a photographer I will always be watching. His aesthetic seems more substantial and more resolved than most of the work I see. His photography—fine art or commercial—flits between natural and plastic, and though his database of subjects varies widely, this aspect of pull never leaves the viewer. It's hard to list his current or upcoming projects, or even something specific to