An update

Alright, so as you all have probably noticed, I am terrible about making regular posts on here, but this time it is for a legit reason. I have been working on this huge painting and it is taking me forever. Until very recently, I always made smaller paintings, pieces no bigger than 24"x 30", however, this new piece is right about 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide. It took me a moment to adjust to it, but now I am nearly finished with it. Below are all my in progress pictures from the beginning until now.

Current.

Thesis rough draft

Trinity Sutterfield

Senior Thesis

Thesis Rough Draft

02.02.2014

            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. A quick jaunt through the grocery store checkout line reveals many magazines that profit off of making women of all sizes hate their bodies. My artwork works to rebel against this. I aim to cause social change. It is for this reason that I call myself a feminist activist artist. As a whole, my work focuses on body image, societal beauty standards and defying them by glorifying the things that society deems ugly or undesirable. 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. Daily women of all sizes are told by the media that they are ugly or unworthy of love unless they are a certain size that is achievable by less than five percent of the American population. 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 rather than in portraying a figure that is slightly more socially acceptable because it is smaller.

 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 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, or rather be a call to action to rebel 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, often drawing reference to the classic paintings of Venus and 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”.

I started working with this idea mid-way through my freshman year in DAAP when I finally had had enough. After high school, I lost more than fifty pounds in less than six months because I fell victim to what all the magazines, TV shows, and even some of my friends and family pushed down my throat; that unless I lost weight, I would be unlovable, no one would want me, that I was not a beautiful because I was too big. I was well on my way to developing an eating disorder, simply because as my weight began to come off, five to ten pounds a week, everyone cheered me on, applauded me for my “success” and encouraged me to continue. While I will never condemn someone for losing weight in a healthy manner, I will always discourage people from believing their bodies are not absolutely perfect the way they are. My work is to combat the notion that one’s worth is in direct correlation with their weight. Often times when I explain why my work and why I am fat positive, I get a variety of responses from anger to confusion. “I’m fat positive because I’m a feminist, and I refuse to acknowledge in the magical thinking that if you’re small enough, quiet enough, compliant enough and saccharine enough, you will somehow be enough” writes Lunette who runs a body positive block call YrWelcome. I will consider my work successful when I have a completed series of work and if both my colleagues in art and my friends outside the art world are able to look at my work and understand it without a lot of explanation. My work aims to change how someone thinks, so I want my work to challenge my viewers to see themselves differently and rebel simply by loving their bodies just the way they are. To quote a familiar band, Mumford and Sons, through my work I say “Lend me your eyes; I can change how you see”.

Over the past year, I have had my ups and downs as an artist. I started off the fall 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 my senior year 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 achieve 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 more in the classical style, and more recently I have started referencing the work of master artists like Botticelli and famous painting like The Birth of Venus. I have really been focusing on the idea of making 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.

In addition to extensive technical and historical research, I have been researching 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. Some of the blogs that I read regularly are Dances With Fat, YrWelcome and Adipositivity.

As for where my work is headed in the future, including the DAAPworks show, I intend to continue painting my figures in a positive light, portraying them confidently grabbing their fleshy stomachs embracing themselves or posing them in ways that reference master artists in an attempt to convey the ideals of body positivity and self-love that I’m focusing on, to my audience. I am doing this by continuing to work on making my paint more flesh-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 will continue working with this subject of body positivity, a subject that has both fascinated and angered me. I will continue working with this idea so long as women spend hours agonizing about their weight, obsessing over diets, and literally starving themselves because they cannot achieve the golden medium that society pushes down our collective throats. 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. 

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.

           

            

Current Works

As I'm sure you gleaned from my previous post, I had fallen behind and hit what was most likely a self imposed creativity block. However, a quick reality check really woke me up and inspired me to work. I got angry at myself and I in turn created one of my most successful pieces in only 8 hours of working on it, which was considerable less than the time I spent on my last big painting. I took one of the photo 'fractured collages' that I had created previously and I began painting. I was going to continue with the idea of the semi hard edge painting approach, however when I moved the piece to a bigger canvas, I realized that that technique wasn't as powerful or as successful as it had been on the smaller canvas.

 So with Frank's words swimming around my brain that I needed to be taking risks, I began throwing paint in the canvas, caring less about that mathematical precision I was doing previously but more about trying to make the paint more fleshy. I got so into the painting that I stopped focusing on trying to see the whole picture in the painting, I just got deep into the painting and let the painting do what it wanted instead of focusing on photo realism. I got so deep into it, that I didn't realize it was done until I took a bathroom break and as I was walking back towards the painting, it was as though a halo formed around it and cosmically told me it was finished. 
This painting actually restored my my need to create artwork.

And here's what I'm working on currently! This is going to be another heavily shadowed painting, however the subject matter speaks more on the idea that plus sized women are sexy to other people rather than just to themselves, however this kind of love is only amplified by self love. Obviously, there isn't much to it yet, as I just start and was only able to spend an hour or so on it, but so far I believe it is successful. Below is the picture that it will be referencing. 

This Semester's Work Part Four

This is where everything both fell apart and came together. I knew I was behind in my work. I had fallen behind due to extreme stress, busyness with my nearly full time job and also with my home life. I began thinking more about my future plans like where I would work after school, whether I wanted to stay working at Teavana and move up through the ranks and use that as my money making job and make art on the side,  planning my graduation trip, planning my wedding and figuring out what I needed to do to move out of my parents house. These are all important things but not nearly as important as I was making it. I laid my work aside and fell behind because I was more worried about what I needed to do after graduation and less about the things that would ultimately get me to graduation. This all changed when I got an email from Frank Herrman, who was concerned that I was not making enough work for advanced painting and reminding me the there was only 27 days until Thanksgiving Break and then when we came back from break, that is DAAP Hell Week and exam week followed that. With the prospect of DAAPworks looming, I, first spent several minutes crying because I was mad at myself for doing this, then I got to work. This reality check was just the kick in the pants that I needed. I went home that night and began painting one of my most successful pieces that I have made all year.

This Semester's Work Part Three

My work has changed a lot over the past few weeks, but this is where things got really hairy. I burst through that roadblock that I was experiencing. I had a really informative critique where it was suggested that to help push my work further into abstraction that I start taking different pictures of my models and splicing them together and focusing on a portion of the body to better portray that the idea of body positivity, which is essentially what my work has focused on for three years. I called this work series my 'fractured collages' and they were extremely successful, however like all meteors, it burned bright for a brief moment but then burnt out just as quickly as it had started. I quickly got tired of the idea. However the reason that this idea was so short lived, it is not because my life was so extremely busy and it just fell to the back burner. Because of working 30 hours a week on top of school and school work, I ended up having nearly 2 weeks where I did not paint a single thing.

This Semester's Work Part Two

After realizing the all hard edge approach was not getting my point across in the way that I had originally thought that it would, I began moving into this idea of semi hard edged pieces. I began sketching and painting my figures in a geometrical way but without taping off the edges as I been doing with my work previously. This was met with overwhelming satisfaction by everyone who viewed my work. They said it made the figure fold better and gave them a physicality that I made them slightly more realistic. I understood that, but nonetheless, the work that I was creating wasn't fulfilling me. I felt as though I was hitting that proverbial roadblock that sometimes plagues me.

As you can see from this picture, I was only able to crank out two pieces with this idea.