Within the topic of women’s issues, this recent work explores our obsession to be thin. Using self-portraiture to document my issue with my weight, I simultaneously comment on the societal pressure to be thin and this beauty ritual we call dieting. The images are extremely personal, and yet most women relate.
The work is not meant to serve as a packaged answer, but rather to raise questions. I often find myself frustrated, vacillating between the goal of unattainable perfection and self-acceptance. Although many of us, including myself, claim to hate the idea that fat is ugly, we still want to be thin and go to extreme lengths to get there.
In the midst of safe abstraction, the work can be quite jarring. Taking a look at our inner demons often reveals more than we care to see. I can PhotoShop to my heart’s content, but I cannot alter the reality that stares back at me in the mirror.
The most intriguing part of this endeavor has been the connection to others who share in this struggle. What touches them often surprises me. I have stumbled across a community of people who reach out to each other by telling their stories. Our weight is much more than just what we eat. It is buried within our life experiences. Perhaps that is where we find the cure to our obsession.
