Exploited # 1

I’m interested in igniting conversations about changing perceptions of beauty - from once offering “natural world” experiences of pleasure to now birthing havoc, akin to the cruelest drug. I’ve worked with the concept of beauty, natural and artificial, for a considerable period of time. I believe that a “natural world” environment speaks to inspiring lives and contrasts with our evolving socialized world, so full of artifice infecting our lives. Are there stunning differences between how beauty is experienced today in each world, natural and socialized? If beauty isn't always so natural anymore does that impact individual lives? If so, how?

To address such issues, I'm first exploring ideas about fashion. As beauty’s commander-in-chief, fashion operates shamelessly, appealing to vanity, employing hypocritical, provocative, and vapid statements in a camouflaged pursuit, and rapacious appetite, for profits. It identifies, and pursues, vulnerable women and children as prey, manipulating them to behave as if constantly on stage, demonstrating who they want to be, are expected to be, or others believe them to be - distinctive clothing and accessories being de rigueur. I think clear signs exist warning of lurking treachery, e.g. glamorized child models and anorexic, aging and despairing adult models. Instead of denying, excusing, or ignoring those signs my work exaggerates them, challenging the appalling emphasis on physical beauty via fashion, demonstrating how that emphasis encourages fantasy, false perceptions of identity, an obsession with appearance as the sine qua non of identity, and even defines our value as human beings.