works

previous/next cute / anguish

summer 2022
48” x 48”
house paint and chalk on canvasCuteness recalls childhood nostalgia when warmth and care was abundent. Sianne Ngai writes about how cuteness while mostly associated with affection and love, can disguise hidden power structions. Cute things provoke a desire in us to protect, to care, or hug, sometimes the urge to consume the subject. They need to be protected and in the same way they are vulnerable and can be taken advantage of. The desire to be cared for and fear of being seen as lesser for it. 

Girlhood is coated in all things cute and fantastical. which i soaked up blissfully as a child. growing up and becoming increasingly unjustly infantilized and sexualized stoked a fire inside me. I abandoned all things pink and sparkly. Violence done to me lives as a memory inside of me.  As i moved into adulthood, I have a newfound interest in these signifiers of girlhood (cute pink sparkles). They are emblems of what i have endured. They are collective memory the horrors and the joys of being girlified. I seek to create things bubbly soft and cozy and harsh fiery and livid or tired and sad all at once to reflect my feelings about my gender and all the complexity. I am exploring cultural signifiers of feminimity, in all their glory and body horror. I reassemble my understanding. I dream-draw new configurations. (2023)