ABOUT

Zoe Sauvé is a 24 year old representational mixed media painter based in Syracuse, NY. She earned her Bachelor of Art from Hamilton College in 2023 with majors in both studio art and economics. 

Her work centers around her identity as a fat woman and her analysis of the world around her through that lens.  Often drawing inspiration from abandoned imagery, such as  derelict houses and garbage, Sauvé aims not only to challenge fatphobic ideologies through her paintings but to question why certain spaces and people are disregarded in the first place. 

The connections revealed through the juxtaposition of abandoned imagery to the fat figure run deeper than feelings of neglect, as both symbolize a subversion of societal expectations and control. With no clear owner, abandoned spaces and objects exist outside the normal idea of ownership and, by extension, control. Likewise, the fat body exists outside of the societal norm. By loving the fat body, one is defying the expectation that it is only desirable to be thin and renouncing the control society has on them.