Sustained Investigation #3

Artist's Statement:

Jillian Wight

Medsker

AP Art and Design

29 October 2021

With this work, my main goal was to really branch out my materials and methods and still allow my personal style to carry through. I wanted to explore the concept of “natural” beauty, and how it is a phrase that is weaponized, normally by men, to shame women who have had plastic surgery, wear makeup, have tattoos, etc. It shames them for individuality, and for breaking the mold of what a woman should look like in the eye of a man. I did so by creating a sheer top, which was provocative in and of itself, which I feel undermines the submissiveness of beauty through the male gaze. I then printed the words “picture book” across the chest and wrapped around the mannequin in an almost suffocating manner, with an old, weary face across the mannequin’s chest. This speaks to the ways in which women are trapped by others’ perceptions of their beauty. I then used photoshop to juxtapose this design with fungal and more literally natural images, to highlight the irony that real “natural beauty” does not refer to a curated, domestic, and submissive image built for a man’s eye. Instead, it references simply what one looks like as the purest form of themselves, however, they decide that appears. It refers to how that human looks! I used funky patterns and colors as well as human forms juxtaposed with an absence of human presence to reflect my own style into the piece.

I used a Cricut design printer and ink to print the design I’d sketched out onto the shirt. The fabric I used is made from a recycled school jersey, which is fully polyester so the design would come out well. I then used a needle and thread to sew the shirt together, and finally, photographed it on a mannequin to upload to photoshop. Digitally, I added numerous images and played with the coloration, until I had a finished product!

I went through numerous stages of revision during this process. In fact, my original vision was very different from my final product. I wanted to create a smaller tank top, and layer over it with a sheer, tight shirt with holes in it that appeared ripped and torn. I realized that this was very logistically difficult, and I didn’t have access to the materials I needed, so I wanted to digitally create this second layer. However, I was inspired to go another direction, and so I ended up incorporating fungi that had these rotten-looking holes in them to carry over the same theme. I have many ideas about where this project could go, and I’m excited to experiment.

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