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One night during my first semester of college, I was feeling terrible. The stress of working to pay for school by myself while actively trying to survive it, making art for the assignments instead of passion, and dealing with negative body image issues, etc... it was all getting to me. So I brought out my trusty oil pastels and started just going at it. I adore when painters let their underpainting show through in their final piece so I laid down my own yellow, scribbly underpainting of pastel and tried to show how I think my body actually looks without reference, and how it feels.
These might become bigger pieces in the future, but for now I am very happy with where these are at on their own.
Terrible like that, all splayed out (2026)
Oil pastel on paper
My Meaning Behind It
My Meaning Behind It
In the leftmost piece I tackled how insecure I am of my side profile. I feel immensly wide, overly large in the worst sense. Thoughts like, "this isn't the beautiful, woman's shape from the side. This is disgusting," plague me throughout every day. No matter hope many times I remind myself that those standards are racist, unfair, and that they go against my core belief that every person deserves love and repect no matter their size, I can never stop thinking about it.
The center piece reveals that the subject is myself specifically. Not an unamed body to be grossed out by or examined, but me being vulnerable in saying, "this is my body. This is me." But with my face in the frame, I couldn't bring myself to draw myself nude or without accessory. The shame still prevails; I do not feel pretty or okay just as me, I need my jewelry and my curling hair. Being bare would be too vulnerable, too far.
The rightmost piece felt more positive; I felt beautiful in those shapes. In this piece we also see the representation of comparison and bargaining under the male gaze. In this celebration of myself, the focus is the breasts. I often think about how when there is that rare representation on a fat woman in media, she always has to have a bigger chest.
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