One of the strongest forces shaping how women react to aging is cultural conditioning around beauty standards. This comes in many forms and sources. Some responses are resistance to change, anger at the patriarchy, anger at stereotypes, and the narrative.
Embedded Files
Touched by Media - Photography, Procreate Behind these Eyes - Procreate Oil brush
Both Touched by Media and Behind These Eyes are responses to the constant bombardment women face regarding beauty standards in different media outlets. Whether it be social media, the news, magazines, or advertisements, women are being conditioned to believe aging is not ok. Despite it being the natural progression into becoming The Wise Woman.
Every Little Girl's Dream - Digital Photography, Photoshop, and Digitally manipulated AI-generated action figures
We still live in a world where women are thought of as less than men. As I look at the way young women dress, two narratives enter my mind: 1. Dressing in ways that show our bodies and owning our sexuality can get the wrong kinds of attention by men, making us vulnerable to improper behavior, and 2. We should have every right to dress the way we want without being slut shamed and be proud of our bodies and our own sexuality.
When Women in our culture stand up against our oppression, we are considered irrational and moody. It is considered unattractive, and the term feminist has gotten a negative connotation. So, where does that place us when we want to have a voice? If we resist the typical stereotypes, we are considered difficult or angry.
In "Every Little Girl's Dream", I have considered these stereotypes. After playing with an image generator I found on Facebook where people can put their faces in different roles, it became clear how women are valued for our sexuality and our roles as homemakers rather than as independent, powerful women. AI has a funny way of creating inaccurate faces, so I took my own selfies and superimposed my face onto them in Photoshop. This piece is a statement on how the dolls that girls are given typically reinforce these stereotypes, perpetuating the patriarchy.
Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #2. 1977
Eyes Up Here - Digitally altered Photography, Photoshop
This piece was inspired by the work of photographer Cindy Sherman. My body of work explores similar subjects of feminism and aging, so her work really struck a chord with me. With some inspiration from Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Still #2, 1977, I wanted to explore the reflections we see of ourselves in the bathroom mirror, juxtaposed with the repeated messages from culture on beauty standards, often dictated by men and what they like to see. This piece, called "Eyes Up Here," Shows me applying anti-aging cream with several reflections and stutters of images of me, one of which is on my cleavage, which tends to be a bittersweet distraction from seeing the "Me."
The Cost of Reinvention - Digital painting with Apple Pencil in Procreate
This piece was inspired by the way women have resisted aging so much that we have tried to reinvent ourselves through plastic surgery, GLP1s, and AI doctored photographs and videos, so much so that it is becoming hard to tell what is real or right anymore.
It has become clear that the possibilities for how AI will be used and how it has already been used are vast, wide, and unpredictable. I was especially alarmed by how AI could compose music using someone's unauthorized voice and style. I wanted my piece to show the diametrically opposed types of creativity. How do we come to terms with our humanism while also embracing this new technology that could take it away? This is a self-portrait in which I am half authentically human, painting in front of a beautiful landscape, while on the other half of me, I have changed so much that I have turned into some kind of Cyborg, entering data in a colorless, dystopian world.
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