Body Shaming- No One Is Safe

It is exposed to us as early as children. Pretty little perfect dolls with long hair and great outfits. Our parents calling us pretty and saying good little girls wear dresses, pigtails, sit  up straight and cross their legs. From an early age a standard of beauty is embedded in our brains. after four years or so we leave our sheltered lives and enter school where we are exposed to a plethora of cultures, races and body images and from that moment even as harmless children we start to judge each other negatively. From then on it spirals out of control through adolescence and well into our adult years. A cycle of destruction we conduct on one another. Media and tugs at the strings and continues to poison our minds with beauty standards. Its exhausting to keep up and you are shamed no matter how bi or small you are. Society is so f-ed up, six out of ten girls I know has had some type of plastic surgery to enhance their bodies. We are bullied from the day we are born but in this age we have access to information and communities that can educate us and help break this cycle. I've chosen three artist who I feel are leading and charging their way into body positivity and social acceptance.   

Kaanchi Chopra

Chopra is an Indian American blogger and artist that illustrates pieces based on inspiration of inequality she observes or is personally affected by to support her blog posts. She loves to use statistics to support her opinions as well as factual content. In the picture above you see a search engine that generated predictions to her search. Unfortunately these predictions are hurtful and unacceptable. I took it upon myself to actually type "fat people are.." in Google search. This information provided in this painting is true. My search suggestions were fat people are lazy and fat people are disgusting. I was so appalled but the authenticity of this painting sparked an even higher interest and level of admiration for me.

In this painting, Chopra shines a light on body shaming that affects "skinny" women as well. "Do you eat anything?", "You don't need exercise.", "Guys don't like stick figures." All these quotes are real comments and they hit home for me. I too have heard these comments made towards me. Bigger and thicker women shame smaller women. Why? Because people shame them? And who is shaming them? Smaller women? This is the cycle of violence against each other I mentioned earlier. The results of these action make everyone no matter how "perfect"  they are extremely insecure.

 Kaanchi Chopra- Art & Activism Blog


"Most socially engaged artists deploy techniques of didacticism in order to make a work just legible enough, So that they can then engage a viewer in a level of ambiguity that will allow her to explore the work for herself."-Nato Thompson

Villy Villian

 Villy is a Chilean artist/activist who creates art to shock and inspire. In her About Me section on her Facebook she stated- "Cómics, libros, cine, música, videojuegos y muuucha protesta. Me gusta dibujar de todo eso." which translates to comics, books, music, video games and looooooots of protest. I like drawing about them. 
In the first pic she shows a woman who is imprisoned in chains that are causing her physical damage and harm, yet she has a euphoric look on her face. It's almost as if she has accepted her imprisonment and wounds because she's supposed to. I feel this picture describes all women in society. 

In these two body shaming pieces she draws women who are killing themselves to meet beauty standards. LITERALLY. You see women posing, using products and one who is looking in the mirror staring at a gorgeous woman but in reality she is a decaying skull. Very eerie and captivating. Her art is very "in your face" impactful. She uses imagery representing cause and effect usually with the destructive effect as her headliner. As a results her pieces immediately start conversations.

Villy Villian

"Therefore, if socially useful art is ultimately determined by the society it serves, the artist, as toolmaker must, by necessity, look to the public sphere, and not to the realm of art, for the logic of her work. It also means that the success of any fully, radically expanded idea of art is ultimately measured by its very disappearance into the daily life of the masses."- Gregory Sholette

Amy D. Herrmann

Amy Is an Australian mother of two girls who was inspired by plus sized campaigns for this project. She features women of all shapes and sizes in the Underneath I Am project. She has women come in and fill out a questionnaire to express the reasons why they want to be a part of the campaign. her goal is to shed a light on women and their individual beautiful assets on the outer and inner self. As a mother of two girls she wanted to educate and build a world she would be proud of her daughters growing up in. I love everything about her vision and work. All women are beautiful and underneath our qualities are incredible. 

underneathiam.com

"Anything that circulates meaning is thus a part of an infrastructure of resonance."- Nato Thompson

“Contemporary art, especially in its avant-garde manifestations, is generally assumed to be in rebellion against the system, [but] it actually acquires a seductive commercial appeal within it.”- Gregory Sholette