Questioning Beauty in Art

ANEMOS DREAM:

OCEANIC DREAM

42" x 79" x 2"

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Local figure painters, and my professors. Began critiquing my ability to paint the figure. They told me what was wrong with my figures. Along with what was wrong with my model. They said stuff like; “she’s a bit tubby" and “you seem to paint only what you think art is”. I rationalized this for a bit.  Like a plastic-surgeon, I outlined the muscle groups. She was crying about her weight, and the art community was concerned about her proportion. Do we take a ruler, and measure a girls limbs? Is this how we decide, that yes indeed, she is beautiful?  

The problem is not beauty or rules of beauty, it’s the excessive need to pursue it, to punish someone for wanting it, and also for not having it. It’s desired over anything, even happiness. I painted her, vulnerable, over the ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh. She was posing for one of the Anemos Dream paintings. This is the definitive moment, when, by pure accident, I caught the raw emotion of her breaking down about her self-image. 

Thank you,

Cedric C.