Seven Zoom panellists gently pass the conversational ball back and forth testing out the lie of the land, seeking the feel and rhythm of their event. Once they’ve found it, the game begins.

A woman with a sleek haircut, simple gold earrings and a strong face introduces herself. Gloria Dittman is elegant, stylish and a leading citizen, supporting the Arts Societyin the American town of Edison, New Jersey. Joyce Browning, is a member of the Society too. She taught art for almost forty years in New Jersey schools. Catherine LaMoreaux is the artistic director at the Dragonfly Multicultural Arts Centre, specialising in performance arts and Margaret Cohen is from the Pastel Society. Each woman is a stalwart of Edison’s artistic infrastructure, and here not only defend its influence, but also to grow it.

Edison Public Library; a town with the motto “Let There Be Light”, hosted the live-streamed event in the early hours of a quiet, dark London night in March, contrasting with the bright, sunny Edison evening, slipping into twilight, Eastern Time.

Three international artists joined the panel. Chantal Boynes, a Caribbean artist working predominantly in large figurative oil paintings of women of colour, using a bold colour palette.

Sandra Strele, a Latvian artist, living in Riga, describes her art as, “large scale paintings, murals and expanded paintings, combining other media, such as sculpture”.

Caro Ramonde, who grew up in Uruguay, now spends her time between Vancouver, Mexico and New York City, working in digital and mixed media. Caro specialises in oil painting which she intervenes with technology.

Caro says, “We are all creators doing new things with the technology that is available all time. They create new programs and new things to intervene our artworks.”

Caro is a member of the Techspressionism movement, based in New York. Her vivid conceptual paintings are inspired by mainly by environmental and global events.

Caro describes an app you can download to see her Florence exhibition made with augmented reality, which virtually displays her paintings wherever you are from your kitchen to your garden and beyond.

She says “It’s something very sad but this is what the pandemic has given us, the digital world has exploded and this is good for artists.”

All three international artists are passionate about their desire to raise the profile of women’s art in galleries and collections worldwide, to address the inherent inequalities of the value placed on women’s art, usually lower than a man’s, and the respect shown to women artists.

They advise artists to network wherever possible and to use social media to the full, creating their own websites, as the digital world has removed barriers to entry and exposure.

Chantal says, “I very much believe in self-publishing. Write about your work, put bulk posts out there. It’s very easy now in the age of online and social media to take your own hands. Learn about it; it’s only a Google away.”

Chantal Boyd set up an art award in November 2019, titled ‘The Boynes Award for Emerging Artists’.

“International Women Artists” was chaired by Lonnie Johnson of the Edison Public Library on 30 March 2021.