Dreaming of Paris

Digital Painting – Height: 36″ Width: 24″

I have been photographing mannequins for over three decades and I have based several paintings on those photos. First-of-all, they don’t mind. But I love taking photos of mannequins because I can easily attribute human emotional characteristics to them. I can tell a story. This story is about being female and grappling with the elusive concept of beauty in America. My heroine, with a dislocated arm and bolts in her head, wistfully dreams of the perfection that she will never attain. For too long, beauty has been defined as an almost unattainable goal created by a society that grossly undervalues a woman’s worth. Once again, this is a moment in history where women have begun trying to take back the narrative of what defines beauty and ultimately, womanhood.