American society’s response to the growing mass media and its endless cycle of influence upon body image is daunting. It has created a skewed perspective of what the ideal female body type should be, and sets the bar far too high for women to match. Instead of focusing on building other personality traits, young girls are now more focused on being sexy even as preteens. Older women are being affected in the sense that they too feel the need to match the ideal type, and end up competing with younger girls. Not only does this create a problem for different generations separately, but also in the way they interact with each other. For example the mother and daughter relationship can become distorted and confused, rather than allowing the child to have a distinct parental entity to look up to. The creation of sites geared towards networking, have also spawned the ability to judge appearances on a more massive scale. This phenomenon feeds their insecurities by creating the need to be accepted physically in a public arena in order to gain self-esteem, rather than being satisfied with the admiration of a significant other.
Yet I do feel there is a way to confront this issue through artistic means, since art uses images as expression in a public space. A painting can not only express emotion through color choices and texture, but how the artist has spent time contemplating the individual and in doing so has given them a certain amount of respect in recreating their image with purpose. Due to the desire of decisively reconstructing the subject visually, I use a photo shoot with my model as a guide not only for physical aspects, but for capturing their mindset, as well. The subject, of whom I am basing the painting, tends to express the true emotions and concerns they have with their bodies when I put them in front of a camera in a vulnerable state. Often times they face their insecurities and seeing themselves within a beautiful painting helps them to transform their self-perception.
I believe it is an artist’s ability to portray and document society from a personal viewpoint, and question certain aspects of it in order to bring about awareness. I find myself passionate in helping others with issues that seem to affect so many. These insecurities that plague them and keep them from being unique, possibly not knowing how to blend their multiracial backgrounds in the American melting pot and the globe, undeniably allow me a certain catharsis by interjecting, at times, my personal experiences. I want to acknowledge the dissonance that resonates between the two influences of the American mass media and my cultural background, while finding a way to connect them when they can do nothing but clash with one another. Beyond that, I hope to give women a different perspective of what beauty and sexy are, which they can relate to, and not grow up feeling that they are naturally anything less.