"Identification of Beauty" - Self-Portrait Project (Nicolette Capua)

Nicolette Capua, "Identification of Beauty", 2022

 

                                                                     Art I was inspired by:

Mickalene Thomas

Wangechi Mutu

                                                                

     My project addresses the theme of female representation in society and female beauty. Still today, women are criticized for what they wear and how they look in society and are constantly being compared to each other. Advertising, fashion, and media play a role in identity, cultural, and social norms, especially with female representation. Advertising, fashion, and media affect the way women see themselves everyday. The media is always showing women looking “their best” with a full face of makeup on, hair done, and a skinny body. Media, advertising, and fashion affect these women's self esteem and confidence everyday. These influence our views on ourselves and each other negatively. By seeing these unrealistic women everywhere on social media, magazines, and on television, it makes us, as women, feel the need to have to dress-up and cover our faces with makeup to fit society's standard they created for us. These themes are addressed in the work of some artists we have learned about and have inspired my project. These artists are Wangechi Mutu, Antoinette Ellis-Williams, and Mickalene Thomas. These women express the concern for other women's place in the world and how they are seen by others. These artists are all women and understand the struggle with having to live up to the unrealistic ideals the public has created.

    My project is a representation of the struggle women face with beauty and society's standards. In the middle of the canvas we see a woman's face. One side of the woman's face is showing a woman with a lot of makeup on, she has flowers as her hair, and she is also showing her nails done with tips on. On the other side of the woman's face there is a collage of different women with no makeup on, and she is showing her bare fingertips with no nail polish. The left side of the woman's face with makeup on is showing the idealistic “norm” women are forced to look like when they walk out of the house. The right side is showing women in their natural state, just as beautiful as the left side. These women don't feel the need to change themselves for anyone. Around the woman's head and arms are powerful words collaged together. These are words women should tell themselves everyday to stay confident and unbreakable.       

    Advertising and fashion images are influenced in my piece by showing women from all different ages, cultures, and ethnicities wearing no makeup and feeling pretty in their own skin. My project speaks to my identity and my relationship with media images because I understand this unnecessary urge to have to put makeup on before leaving the house. Media has always shown me that if I didn't cover my face with a full face of makeup and dress in tight outfits then I would be considered ugly and “not beautiful." However, every women should feel confident in their own skin with or without makeup. Women should make the decision to wear makeup or not based on their own wants and needs, not what society dictates. Makeup does not define a woman's beauty. We have to embrace our true colors and be ourselves no matter what media, advertising, fashion, and society as a whole throws our way.

4 Quotes:

Wangechi Mutu at Met ( NYT) by Nancy Princenthal

1- “The work of these women is immense. The regard for them is not.” (Times )

     Women are still being treated unfairly today and no one is doing anything about it. In this quote, Mutu is addressing that she has seen amazing work from women that have not been acknowledged enough or appreciated enough as they should be.


2- "Women express 'wealth, status, family, and tribe' through their bearing and ornamentation which are 'all languages definable as art." (Times 2)

     If women were seen to be wealthy, people would assume their husband was rich and was giving her his women. Women's status in a household was to be seen as the weak one who just cleaned up around the house as the husband was at work. Today this is not the case, as women are gaining more and more power to be independent and do what they want.

The Feminists Challenge of Wangechi Mutu by Heidi Orley

3- “These layered references and remixed body politics contribute to an interrogation of otherness, race, alienation, and female representation” (Orley 2).

     Race and female representation was Mutus' main target in many of her pieces. Addressing concerns on these topics, especially female representation, helps bring awareness to society as a whole and engages others to support her work and change the way people view women.


The Art of Self Invention by Joanne Finkelstein

4-"Bertrande was found innocent; her crime was being a woman and thereby intellectually inferior and thus susceptible to persuasion and trickery." (Finkelstein 44).

    Being a woman is not easy. We are brought into stereotypes and seen to be small and weak. Although, this is not the case. We are more powerful than everybody knows and we will not let anyone bring us down that easily.