Artist Statement
Desire Body is an exploration of pleasure, perception, and power in relation to fatness, motherhood, and societal expectations. Through photography, printmaking, and interactive installations, I challenge the constructs of desirability and the ways bodies—especially fat bodies—are scrutinized, controlled, and aestheticized. These ideals are not just imposed in the present but inherited, passed through generations in the form of internalized biases, cultural memory, and deeply embedded fears of excess. My work embraces indulgence and tactility, drawing on materials like bubble gum, slime, and soft textures to reflect seduction, excess, and the tension between attraction and rejection.
In my relief carvings, stretch marks and folds become intricate topographies, emphasizing the artist’s hand and the labor of mark-making. These lines and impressions echo the histories our bodies carry—marks of change, of resilience, of the expectations imposed upon them. My photographs place my own body atop fragile, precarious chairs against a stark white background, amplifying the tension between weight, balance, and instability. These images expose the vulnerability of existing in a body that is both hyper-visible and overlooked, questioning who is afforded security and who is expected to shrink, adjust, or bear the burden of societal discomfort. This discomfort is not just external; it is learned, inherited, and internalized over time, shaping the way we see ourselves and others. Interactive elements, such as stacks of printed paper that diminish as viewers take pieces, symbolize the erasure of individuality in the face of unattainable ideals, reflecting how cultural narratives around body image and worth are absorbed and perpetuated.
By centering fatness and motherhood in my work, I resist the pressures of conformity and celebrate bodies that exist outside normative beauty standards. These identities are sites of generational negotiation, shaped by the silent passage of shame, resilience, and self-perception. Desire Body questions who is allowed pleasure, visibility, and agency while confronting the viewer’s own perceptions of worth and desirability. My practice is a reclamation—of space, of self, and of the right to be seen as both desirable and whole.