Artist Statement

This body of work expresses a feminist argument which seeks to dissect our society’s commodification and hypersexualization of women’s bodies. I critique male gaze by employing stereotypical indicators of beauty and inquire about this by pairing them with the edible, bizarre, private, or hyper-feminine. I incorporate objects that serve to indicate visual symbols of the oppressive nature of objectification and gender roles, twisting and exaggerating the expectation for beauty for both women and art. In distorting images of the feminine self and pairing them with items typically perceived as edible, I investigate the absurdity of our cultural appetite for perfection, and undermine previous connotations we carry with the concept of still life and portraiture. By allowing myself to consume the canvas in an abstracted series of self portraits, I expose an intimate experience of insecurity and frustration. The detrimental effects of societal standards for women enter this work in an intersection between the seductive and grotesque to make undeniably visible the lasting harm done to feminine flesh.