Artist Statement
The embroidery and mixed media pieces I create focus on the Western world’s obsession with body image, our social aesthetics, gender norms, ingrained biases, and the shame that is put upon us both by others and our own minds. These works aim to develop a discourse around cultural conditioning and societal implications of restrictive standards of beauty, as well as the discrimination and violence experienced by people living in marginalized bodies, with a particular focus on fat bodies. My embroidery works feature portraits of persons who shun outdated and constricting notions of what are considered “acceptable” bodies in our world and who celebrate their differences and diversity in ways that can be considered disobedient. Through my practice I explore my own internal evolution away from the traditional paradigm of thin, white, cis, able-bodied women as the epitome of beauty and sexuality, and deconstruct the societal behaviours and thought processes that have become part of everyday life for me and many other fat people.
Through labour-intensive media such as cross-stitch and embroidery, I emphasize the obsessive nature of my work and bring attention to cultural stereotypes of femininity. As well, by bringing in the historical connotations of embroidery and textile work, my intention is to reference concepts of "women's work” - further stereotypes of what a woman is traditionally expected to be by society, where fatness is often seen as a failure to be feminine. The gel transfer and acrylic pieces work I have created layer imagery of bodies with language and metaphor with the goal of creating visual dialogues about the need for body diversity and a retraining of our brains to dismantle weight stigma and stereotypes about fatness.
In previous work, I have used photographs of other activists and personalities that are working in the body positivity, feminist, and fat activism movements, as well as community members that are not in the spotlight and my own self-portraits. For these, I have sought to source photographs from individuals to capture the “everyday” people that are living in bodies that society wants us to hate - those who face discrimination, body image issues, and negative stereotypes daily and resist and thrive, but who go unnoticed. Newer work narrows its focus to self-portraiture as a way for me to really expose my own vulnerabilities and sore spots with regards to body image and the systemic oppression of fat people, in order to ultimately heal and grow.
My work is influenced by concepts of feminism - in particular, the questioning of the notion that a person's physical attractiveness should be their number one priority at all times, the impact of this obsession with beauty and its intersections with other marginalized experiences. Fat Activism, intersectionality, and the rejection of traditional standards of beauty, or even of physical appearance as a measurement of self-worth are integral to the creation of this body of work and to my ambition of creating social change on a larger scale.
Through labour-intensive media such as cross-stitch and embroidery, I emphasize the obsessive nature of my work and bring attention to cultural stereotypes of femininity. As well, by bringing in the historical connotations of embroidery and textile work, my intention is to reference concepts of "women's work” - further stereotypes of what a woman is traditionally expected to be by society, where fatness is often seen as a failure to be feminine. The gel transfer and acrylic pieces work I have created layer imagery of bodies with language and metaphor with the goal of creating visual dialogues about the need for body diversity and a retraining of our brains to dismantle weight stigma and stereotypes about fatness.
In previous work, I have used photographs of other activists and personalities that are working in the body positivity, feminist, and fat activism movements, as well as community members that are not in the spotlight and my own self-portraits. For these, I have sought to source photographs from individuals to capture the “everyday” people that are living in bodies that society wants us to hate - those who face discrimination, body image issues, and negative stereotypes daily and resist and thrive, but who go unnoticed. Newer work narrows its focus to self-portraiture as a way for me to really expose my own vulnerabilities and sore spots with regards to body image and the systemic oppression of fat people, in order to ultimately heal and grow.
My work is influenced by concepts of feminism - in particular, the questioning of the notion that a person's physical attractiveness should be their number one priority at all times, the impact of this obsession with beauty and its intersections with other marginalized experiences. Fat Activism, intersectionality, and the rejection of traditional standards of beauty, or even of physical appearance as a measurement of self-worth are integral to the creation of this body of work and to my ambition of creating social change on a larger scale.