Exposed

Several weeks ago I announced that I had accepted the proposal from Van Gogh Art Gallery in Madrid Spain, to represent me at the International Contemporary Art Fair in Paris France this winter….and what an incredibly journey it has been so far.

We initially hit a few hurdles. All of the portraits I’ve created are already contracted to the Duluth Art Institute and are unavailable for this exhibition, and my new work isn’t ready and should be initially viewed as a collection. In addition, I can’t let any of them sell right now because I’m a storyteller and each portrait is vital to the story. So... I had agreed to pause my current project and produce 3 new portraits just for this exhibition. It was a big ask of me...but I’m grateful they want my work even though it hasn’t been created yet. That’s a huge leap of faith. I’m very excited. It was a daunting project. I don’t like quick deadlines....but I said yes.

The three portraits I created for the project ended up being a mini collection of reflections about the Female Body. The first portrait I created was a portrait of my nine year old daughter. the second was a self portrait, and the final portrait is of my mother. I’m incredibly grateful not only for this opportunity to share my work, but this mini collection has come to mean an awful lot to me, and it wouldn’t even exist without the proposal made by the Van Gogh Gallery and their belief in my work as an artist.

The Female Body mini collection 2020

When I reflected on the female body through the depiction of three generations, I saw a lot of darkness but I also have a lot of hope. Each portrait is accompanied by an essay which I encourage you to read by clicking on the link below, but here are the cliff notes….When I though of my daughter’s body, my initial thoughts quickly turned from delight and wonder to darkness and danger, because I know how prevalent sexual abuse is, and because I know that Native American woman and girls are at greater risk of sexual and physical violence than other sectors of the population. I am nervous for the future of my daughters body and the experiences of dehumanization she will undoubtably experience at some point on her journey. I created a short 2 minute video for this piece which unveils my process as I create and my thoughts as I was working on this piece. This video has become an art piece in itself. It’s had a powerful impact, and I am incredibly proud of how it turned out. The second portrait took me on a journey through thoughts and revelations about my own body and my relationship to it. It’s about the struggles I’ve had accepting my body as it is and ultimately finding peace with it and learning to celebrate it. The final portrait in the collection is of my mother. This portrait developed into a conversation about my relationship to my mother’s body and about the messaging we receive about aging as a woman in today’s society.

As my process creating has evolved, I’ve tended to move away from traditional shapes like squares and rectangles for the overall shape of each of my portraits, but for what ever reason, this collection felt like they wanted to be confined in a box. I fought against it intellectually because moving beyond the box was one of the things that really excited me about my work. But with this collection, the box “felt” right and so I caved to it. When I created the portrait of my daughter, her little foot just wanted to cross the line, it wanted to be exposed, which is how I decided to leave it. My self portrait came next and I couldn’t see the feet. I went back and forth intellectually about whether the feet were necessary. My work is inspired by visions. So I try not to stray too far from what I “see” in my mind. I didn’t see feet. Then I created the portrait of my mother and again, her foot wanted to cross the line. It had me asking myself why. I thought maybe the reason I didn’t see feet in my portrait was because it’s the only part of my body that I’ve never been critical of, so I saw them faded into the background. But I soon realized that each portrait was a narrative about the conflict our female bodies face in society. These narratives have become so ingrained…. “If a woman was assaulted what was she wearing or doing….the rigid ideals of what a sexy body looks like…..aging isn’t beautiful or celebratory and should be thwarted at all costs”….these narratives dominate the conversations and these perceptions about our bodies have remained, mostly unchallenged by the majority of societal opinion. The portraits of my daughter and my mother where literally stepping outside of this box, and yet my self portrait did not have feet.

It forced me to take a closer look at myself. How honest was my truth? Have I really made peace or was that just wishful thinking. Am I still struggling? I think that the answer is that self love is not a destination. It’s a journey that I will always be on. I still have work to do to challenge the negative narratives about women’s bodies, about my own body. But I’ve reworked my self portrait. I am committed to stepping outside of the box.