Fall Thesis Proposal

For many years, I have been fascinated by the idea of societal beauty standards and the affect it has on the female psyche. Daily, women are faced with thousands of images and articles telling them that are not good enough, simply because they are not small enough. My artwork works to rebel against this. My work explores the relationship between beauty standards and the female psyche, as well as the idea that every body is beautiful. with my figures of nude women of various sizes, portrayed in a positive light, and the accompanying imagery, and sometimes text, I am currently examining themes of  I examine the themes of body positivity, feminism and the effects of societal beauty standards on women through many mediums including drawing, painting, photography and digital editing/painting. As for my audience, I want my work to not only challenge them to think beyond what society has taught them, but I also want my work to instill a sense of anger at the idea of women being told by society that if they are small enough, quiet enough, compliant enough and saccharine enough, you will somehow be enough. In my current work I am creating large scale paintings of nude, and often faceless, women of plus sizes, displayed in a positive light to show the conceptual meaning behind my work, which can be summarized into one simple statement, “all bodies are beautiful not only in spite of their size but also because of their size”.

Over the past 13 weeks, I have had my ups and downs as an artist. I started off the semester thinking that I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Near the end of my junior year, after an entire semester of creative blocks and forcing work, I was able to create one really successful piece, a five foot tall painting of a woman’s nude back in hard edge. Because of the success I had with this piece, I started this semester continuing to work in hard edge, however after spending a significant amount of time focusing more on the mathematical precision of hard edge painting rather than on the concept of my art. I began to feel that there was better way to go the overwhelming theme to my work. So it was, pun intended, back to the drawing board. As the semester progressed, I began to pull away from the hard edge painting slowly; for a time I painted in “semi hard edge” and eventually stopped doing it altogether. I have since moved into this idea of painting these “fractured collages” I made through digital manipulations of several of my nude models and have really been focusing on the idea of my paintings look very skin-like and fleshy, which portrays a realness to the audience, thus making my concept more hard hitting and harder to  ignore.

To achieve these ideas I have been doing intense research on how exactly to make my paint more flesh-like, including watching tutorials and experimenting with acrylic mediums such as extenders, molding paste and gel medium, as well as taking the advice of the both my peers and my teachers and spent time at the art museum just looking at different painting techniques. In addition to the technical and historical research, I have also been researching new my conceptual ideas in greater depth through the many body positive blogs I follow and read regularly. I have found that I get the best information and inspiration from “underground” resources because I have come to realize that this movement of body positivity is still in its early stages and the best information comes from a few individuals who have chosen to think outside of what society tells them.

As for where my work is headed in the future, including the DAAPworks show and dry run, I intend to continue painting my figures in a positive light, portraying them confidently grabbing their fleshy stomachs or embracing themselves in an attempt to convey the ideals of body positivity and self-love to my audience. I will do this by continuing to work on making my paint more fleshy-like, researching and looking at more paintings to get more ideas on how paint can be handled by looking at different artists of the past. As it has been suggested is many of my critiques this semester, I will continue to keep pushing my works further into abstraction as well as increasing my canvas size until my figures are larger than life and invoke an imposing feeling in my audience.

In conclusion, I intend to continue working with the theme that has both fascinated and angered me for more than four years and I cannot wait to see what kind of work I will create as I begin to make my paintings larger than life to invoke an angry response in my audience that will in turn challenge them to think about my concept that all bodies are beautiful not only in spite of their size but also because of their size.