CARACOLA

2021

I see this body of work as an intersection of ecology, femininity and spirituality.  This series explores the connection of society’s view of femininity and the mirrored way we treat our earth. My paintings imagine what the reversal of this might look like.  

I want to portray femininity without inhibition, a femininity from the female gaze.  From a young age women are taught to evaluate ourselves from the other’s perspective, rather than grounding in how we feel within our bodies. I want to create pieces that originate within this sense of grounding, in order to reconnect with our inner selves, and experiencing a sense of homecoming to our bodies as our primal home.  I hope to reclaim and celebrate the female form from the female perspective, in all of it’s varieties and shapes, as inherently luxurious, spacious, and unique.    

I use my own photography or photos that women share with me, and manipulating scale as a method to cultivate possibility in the viewer’s imagination. Portraying our soft mammal bodies in unusual natural elements, I aim to highlight our physical belonging on this planet.  As humans our natural habitats are wild places, which are rapidly diminishing. I hope to create work that portrays humans as being part of the ecosystem, to show that not only do we need to preserve the natural world for the sake of animals, but also for ourselves in order to be fully human and integrated.  Pushing back against anthropocentrism, my paintings explore how to inhabit this earth with greater consciousness and humility.  

My work is a declaration of coming home to yourself, reclaiming your bodies and this earth as home, and to participate in preserving our abundant and diverse habitats.