Introduction

Have you ever listened to Beyoncé’s song “Pretty Hurts” and thought to yourself, “Why does pretty hurt?” The beauty standards in the U.S. often leave many people out. These standards tend to value a particular look with specific characteristics including fair skin, blue or light eyes, long straight hair, and a skinny build. Most women cannot completely meet these standards even if they come close, but they are more impossible for some women to meet than others, like women of color. This project is a collection of three collages that address how these standards impact Black women. The leading question of the project is, “What is the beauty standard for Black women and how does it affect them?”.

Literature Review

Scholars have begun research into how Black women feel about their beauty. In their research, Kathryn Harper and Becky L. Choma found that Black women in the U.S. internalize white beauty standards, objectify themselves with them, and use them to evaluate their self-worth (735). Another important point their research made was that Black women are treated based on how well they meet these standards, so there is reason to recognize how they affect them. This project attempts to shed more light on this topic and proposes a new standard.

In the past, people have used the arts to address social issues such as this. During the Cubist and Dada movements, collage art was established to challenge the previous ideas about what valuable art is (Meyer). Since then, collage art has continued to develop and has been used by other artists to make a social commentary. For example, Hans Arp (1886 – 1966) used collage to criticize WWI and Hannah Höch (1889 – 1978) used it to challenge gender stereotypes within politics and racism (Meyer). This project uses collage for a similar purpose, however, it challenges beauty standards for Black women.

Methods

The early development stages of this project included a media review of sources discussing the history of collage. The media review also involved looking at pieces by other artists to learn more about collage styles and techniques. Some techniques used in this project include layering and spacing, and drawing or writing directly on them. These were discovered in the research and have been used in each of the three mixed-media collages. 

Audience & Impact

The target audience of this project is young Black women. A large amount of the research aims to discover how U.S. beauty standards affect them. The U.S. beauty standards leave many women out, but they uniquely affect Black women. Some aspects of the general standard are impossible to achieve, such as being white, so a modified or alternative version of the criteria is inflicted on them. After viewing this project, young Black women should feel that they are valuable and recognize that their appearance is not what makes them valuable. As a member of the target audience, I have learned that I am not alone in the way I feel about the standards. This project has helped me to feel slightly better about myself as well.

References

Harper, Kathryn, and Becky L. Choma. “Internalised White Ideal, Skin Tone Surveillance, and Hair Surveillance Predict Skin and Hair Dissatisfaction and Skin Bleaching among African American and Indian Women.” Sex Roles, vol. 80, no. 11/12, June 2019, pp. 735–44. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0966-9. 

Meyer, Isabella. “Collage Art - A History of Collage as an Artistic Medium.” Art in Context, 8 Apr. 2021, https://artincontext.org/collage-art/. 

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Arts Scholars directors, Harold and Heather, as well as my fellow peers for helping me to develop my project and refine my ideas.