Body Type

Timber embroidery hoop, grey cotton fabric, embroidery floss.

5 in diameter

2018

These embroidery pieces develop a discourse around cultural and societal implications of restrictive standards of beauty. The need to feel beautiful and desired is universal, but the standards for how to achieve that are so restrictive that it leaves little chance for many to accomplish this. These art pieces are a way to explore an evolution away from the traditional paradigm of thin, white, able-bodied women as the epitome of beauty and sexuality, and towards a more inclusive understanding of beauty and the shunning of restrictive norms. The technique of embroidery reinforces the concept of cultural stereotypes of femininity. Concepts of "women's work" are evoked through the history of embroidery and textile work, further stereotypes of what a woman is traditionally expected to be by society.

 An artist I referenced was Jenny Saville. In a society often obsessed with physical appearance, Saville has created a niche for overweight women in contemporary visual culture: 

“A lot of women out there look and feel like that, made to fear their own excess, taken in by the cult of exercise, the great quest to be thin. The rhetoric used against obesity makes it sound far worse than alcohol or smoking, yet they can do you far more damage. I'm not painting disgusting, big women. I'm painting women who've been made to think they're big and disgusting, who imagine their thighs go on forever. The history of art has been dominated by men, living in ivory towers, seeing women as sexual objects. I paint women as most women see themselves. I try to catch their identity, their skin, their hair, their heat, their leakiness. I do have this sense with female flesh that things are leaking out. A lot of our flesh is blue, like butcher's meat. In history, pubic hair has always been perfect, painted by men. In real life, it moves around, up your stomach, or down your legs”.