Bodies That Deviate: Looking Back (2019)
Consisting of two parts, this body of work features a selection of traditional portraiture as well as a series of abstracted nude figures. Shot deadpan, the passport-like portraits show several women donning a hospital gown who confront the viewer with an emotionless gaze. The alternate collection features images of the affected bodies of these same women, fragmented, depersonalized and put on display.
Centring in on notions of the feminine disabled body, these images reference the active and passive dichotomies associated with the body as spectacle— an object under the medical and gendered gaze. Further, illness/disability is often disruptive, forced and threatening, making one aware of the materiality of the body and hyper-aware of any physical differences it may bring on. The inflicted part(s) is made to feel alien from the rest, becoming othered in an effort to create a body/self division.
Bodies that Deviate: No. 2, (2019), Black & White Digital Inkjet Print, 24 x 34 inches Defined as the embodiment of corporal insufficiency and deviance in modern visual culture, the feminine disabled body is under intense scrutiny. In keeping with the medical model, she is a passive object in need of clinical intervention —as a defect that must be “cured” or normalized. Under the gendered gaze, she is seen as an abnormal feminine body, a further departure from the ideal in need of beautification so as to assert her feminine privilege. The disabled female body experienced under the gendered and/or medical gaze is thus an object in need of tending.
Bodies that Deviate, No. 2, (2019), Black & White Digital Inkjet Print 33.5 x 23 inches
Bodies that Deviate, No. 1, (2019), Black & White Digital Inkjet Print, 31.5 x 24 inches
Bodies that Deviate, No. 5, (2019), Black & White Digital Inkjet Print, 24 x 30 inches
Bodies that Deviate, No. 3, (2019), Black & White Digital Inkjet Print, 31.5 x 24 inches
Bodies that Deviate, No. 6, (2019), Black & White Digital Inkjet Print, 31.5 x 24 inches
Bodies that Deviate, No. 7, (2019), Black & White Digital Inkjet Print, 31.5 x 24 inches
Bodies that Deviate, No. 4, (2019), Black & White Digital Inkjet Print, 26 x 26 inches