The Female Aesthetic

The main focus of my practice for my degree was of body image and women. I layered images made on Photoshop with paint till the image became muddied and each area became indistinguishable. Using photoshop I fractured the image and scattered the pieces across the rest of the image. Using paint as the flesh of the real person I built a 3D image, showing that behind a 2D edited image we see in magazines and advertisement, there is a real person. The idea behind my work was that although I want my body to be mine and to not follow conformity of having the perfect body, I am still conditioned by this societal need to 'fit in'. I also worked on a series of images of several other people and asked them what parts of their bodies they disliked/ hated. After taking a portrait photograph of these people I then took photos of myself and these particular spots that these people disliked and edited the two images together. It was interesting to see that many people were worried about their stomach area, both men and women. It was also interesting to hear how some people dislike parts of their bodies that I had never considered before on myself. Although I did not feel self conscious in some of those areas myself, it scared me how uncomfortable I felt taking those photos.