SI #1

Artist's Statement:

The idea for this project came from looking at the history of beauty, and looking to the 20's in particular for inspiration. There has been a lot of commercialization of the female body in history, but I think that in the 20's it hit new levels. With the development of film, motion pictures, and other media, pornography became more prevalent as well. There was a certain glamour associated with smoking at the time, that it also became an aspect that tied into beauty. I latched onto that idea of the cigarette girls, the girls who would go around, often scantily clad, selling cigarettes at clubs. I really wanted to portray the idea of that capitalization of the female body, and its use as a marketing tool. All these elements got tied into this painting, which portrays the oversexualization of women, and how they are too often commercialized.

I wanted to show the connection to the 20's, and also a connection to old hollywood, and the exploitation of the female body that came with it. So, I decided to only use black and white. I wanted to give off that look of the first films produced, the boom of photography. I used gesso as my white, because I find that white paint gives off to much of a glare, and I wanted this painting to be more matte. I used charcoal for the initial sketch directly on the canvas, because I found that it imitates smoke easily, and smoke would be a main feature of the paining.

This painting has evolved a lot. You can see in some of the sketches above that I had a very different image of what it would turn out as. I had started sketching with a modern setting in mind, and had planned to use neon colors to give the appearance of a club scene. You can see that in some of those sketches I also included clothing, and more accessories. In the end, I started painting, and I decided to change that up and go for the old school club look. the figures are still not nudes, because they are still wearing heels and earrings, but that adds to the idea that at that time, in the 20's, nudity was associated with sex, so the idealism of nudity was lost. I ended up with a painting that speaks with strong themes of female oversexualization, and the history of beauty as a pornographic tool. Additionally, we are currently a century past this time, and these themes are as prevalent as ever.