Womanhood: A Journey to Self-Love and Self-Discovery
Nate Mathews and Kim Ambriz are the faculty sponsors of this project.
Abstract
“Womanhood: A Journey to Self-Love and Self-Discovery” is a painting exhibition that focuses on portraying the experience of womanhood through expressionistic and figurative art work. Using color and gestural line work as the main focus to accentuate the female nude figure, each painting captures the beauty of empowerment and its importance for self-discovery. My paintings celebrate the notion of what it means to be a woman while celebrating womanhood through the representation of empowered female figures. As a child of immigrants, Mexican culture has highly influenced how I perceive feminist issues. Machismo, in my culture, is toxic and aggressive masculinity that affects women and reinforces female oppression. I have witnessed the normalization of violence against women and harmful patriarchy when fathers raise their daughters. These traditional values disrupted my journey to self-discovery. I struggled to find my voice and I lacked the freedom of self- expression throughout my adolescent years. Through this realization and struggle to self-love, I find it vital for my artwork to portray the beauty of femininity for those who were raised to be ashamed of it. My aim is to create a language that nurtures those like me. With the new wave of feminism celebrating the beauty of difference, I believe every woman should see themselves as beautiful artwork. Moreover, I want them to see themselves represented in mainstream art. In using a feminine color palette of tinted pinks and violets, I use bold lines and thicker paint passages to address the strength that underlies these colors. Emphasizing the female form with contour lines and ecstatic line work implies movement. This gives each painting a feel of motion – either through space or emotion. While using colors that reflect femininity and evoke empowerment, I also manipulate the scale of the canvas to reflect an actual life-size individual in attempt to begin the conversation of self-reflection. For my message to come across, I believe scale serves as a medium for a more intimate response from the viewer. In totality, I see my paintings as efforts to address my constant state of instability and a way of rising beyond societal perceptions.
Womanhood: A Journey to Self-Love and Self-Discovery
“Womanhood: A Journey to Self-Love and Self-Discovery” is a painting exhibition that focuses on portraying the experience of womanhood through expressionistic and figurative art work. Using color and gestural line work as the main focus to accentuate the female nude figure, each painting captures the beauty of empowerment and its importance for self-discovery. My paintings celebrate the notion of what it means to be a woman while celebrating womanhood through the representation of empowered female figures. As a child of immigrants, Mexican culture has highly influenced how I perceive feminist issues. Machismo, in my culture, is toxic and aggressive masculinity that affects women and reinforces female oppression. I have witnessed the normalization of violence against women and harmful patriarchy when fathers raise their daughters. These traditional values disrupted my journey to self-discovery. I struggled to find my voice and I lacked the freedom of self- expression throughout my adolescent years. Through this realization and struggle to self-love, I find it vital for my artwork to portray the beauty of femininity for those who were raised to be ashamed of it. My aim is to create a language that nurtures those like me. With the new wave of feminism celebrating the beauty of difference, I believe every woman should see themselves as beautiful artwork. Moreover, I want them to see themselves represented in mainstream art. In using a feminine color palette of tinted pinks and violets, I use bold lines and thicker paint passages to address the strength that underlies these colors. Emphasizing the female form with contour lines and ecstatic line work implies movement. This gives each painting a feel of motion – either through space or emotion. While using colors that reflect femininity and evoke empowerment, I also manipulate the scale of the canvas to reflect an actual life-size individual in attempt to begin the conversation of self-reflection. For my message to come across, I believe scale serves as a medium for a more intimate response from the viewer. In totality, I see my paintings as efforts to address my constant state of instability and a way of rising beyond societal perceptions.