Drop the Weight/ Take Up Space

From a young age, women are taught to project an image of themselves that subscribes to the ideal qualities of an established stereotypical version of femininity. That our bodies should give when shoved, that we should be nurturing and diffuse conflict, that we should be petite, and above all else we should be receptive and attractive to men. In my practice I describe these established stereotypes as a ‘social script’- one that refers to implied rules about social ideals that classify, divide, and determine value or worth in human bodies. I am questioning stereotypes associated with gender, what does a weight room- or a husband and child expect of me as a woman? 

​

My paintings examine how I have experienced womanhood as a powerlifter through large-scale figurative paintings that play with fantasies of femininity, consumption of the body, and self-portraiture. My practice is informed by online weightlifting forums where harassing comments and the fetishizing of female bodybuilders and powerlifters is unavoidable. These forums where anonymous individuals simultaneously feast on and degrade the progress of women’s bodies make me question how hard I will have to fight to take up space in a male-dominated community.

​

My work confronts the social ideal of womanhood by rejecting the expected minuscule, soft modesty of imagined femininity. Instead, I offer a monumentalized image of the feminine body: one who is assertive, who takes up space, commands it, and unapologetically dominates it. The women I paint contrast the petite motif of socially acceptable femininity, and promote bodies that take over their spaces, mountainous women who look strong and capable, protectors who tower over onlookers and defiantly gaze back at those who consume them.