Art by Trinity Sutterfield: This Semester's Work Part One

Monday, October 28, 2013

This Semester's Work Part One

I started this semester off thinking that I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Last semester (spring '13), I had spent most of semester really confused and was forcing out work, however I was finally able to make one really great, successful piece at the very end of the semester; and 5 foot tall painting of a woman's back in hard edge. Originally I was focusing on the aspect of portraying plus size women as goddesses and it turned way too kitschy for me and it made the women look like mythical creatures which I didn't want. I want my figures to say "I'm here now, an I'm not going away". So I was working with making my figures larger than life when I was just drawing and I "what would happen if" I drew the figure in hard edge. And it's kinda symbolic of being forceful in wanting to not be told to be that they must change themselves to be considered sexy. I continued working with the hard edged figures well into this semester and spent three weeks working with it exclusively.

While I did enjoy creating this, I began feeling lost and burnt out of the idea of hard edge, as well as believing there was a better way to portray the overwhelming theme in my work, rather than reducing the female body into a system of straight lines.

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Trinity Sutterfield

Feminist Activist Artist from Cincinnati. I currently live in the bustling metropolis of Hebron Kentucky, but spend most of my time at The University of Cincinnati- DAAP (Design, Architecture, Art and Planning).

For many years now I have been interested in the societal beauty demands that women are faced with. My artwork takes a critical view of social and cultural issues. In my work, I explore themes like body positivity and feminism, feminism and the effects of societal beauty standards on women through many mediums including drawing, painting, photography and digital editing/painting. My work is influenced by artists as diverse as Ewan Uglow, Jenny Saville, Sandro Botticelli and William Bouguereau. I am also influenced by many writers, including blogs such as Adipositivity and Dances with Fat. Daily, women are faced with thousands of images and articles telling them that are not good enough, simply because they are not small enough. I do not believe this is true. My work celebrates the plus size body, often showing the attributes that society deems ugly or undesirable as the ideal. I aim to cause social change. It is for this reason that I call myself a feminist activist artist. As a whole my work is typically positive, celebrating the body and teaching my audience to love theirs; however it also tends to demonize society’s thin obsession. I have been focusing on this theme for nearly four years and I still hold the same fervor and passion for it that I did when I first started working with it; however my concept has matured beyond just showing that big women are beautiful to showing that all bodies are beautiful no matter their size. I tend focus on bigger women because there is more of an element of rebellion there in portraying beauty in a figure that society deems ugly or undesirable, rather than in portraying a figure that is slightly more socially acceptable because it is smaller. With my work, I aim to show the world that all bodies are beautiful not only in spite of their size but also because of their size.