Soft Shell: Fatness and Visual Representation
Date
2018-09-20
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
0000-0002-3863-7985
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
Abstract
This thesis and accompanying exhibition examine some of the complexities of inhabiting a fat body. I track the developments and progress of my work over the duration of my master’s degree, enabling me to locate a conceptually concise theme from which I have built my graduate exhibition; an exploration of inherited food values, a critical examination of the medicalization and discourses of the fat body, and a glimpse of the long-term effects of living at odds with, yet within these systems.
To give voice to the complexity of inhabiting a fat identity, I have developed a series of works that explore a variety of emotions and concepts through the lens of fatness. My exhibition support paper addresses my artwork through the following interconnected topics: food values, growth, obsession, utopia, protection, fear, and evolution.
Over the course of my research the most disturbing findings uncovered illuminated the ways in which the diet industry and medicalization of fat bodies contributes to the very real and alarming long-term physical, and dissociative psychological effects that can be perpetrated on a fat person. This research coupled with the influence of the writing of cultural theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha, and the influence of artists such as Cindy Baker and Allyson Mitchell directly informs the works presented in my graduate exhibition Soft Shell. Using strategies of exaggeration, surrealism, and critical questioning allows for a subversion of problematic beliefs about fatness.
Description
Keywords
Fat, Sculpture, Fatness, Fat Identity, Gallstones, Bariatric Surgery, Art, Fibre Art, Rachel Herrick, Cindy Baker, Allyson Mitchell, My Mad Fat Diary, Moon Pools, Adipose, Numina, Soft Shell, Bread, Diet Culture
Citation
Degree
Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)
Department
Art and Art History
Program
Studio Art