TY - GEN T1 - [1.3] Every Body AU - Stewart, Alana AB - I am a Graphic Designer, photographer and illustrator. I have a passion for the imperfect odds and ends that society often dismisses and discards. Finding beauty within imperfections is what really scratches my itch. My primary subject matter are people and objects that society often looks down on. As a person bored with the mundane of the natural world, I often change colors to vibrant hues. This combined with my favorite drawing technique, hatching, is my style. My series titled Every Body consists of 18 men and women illustrated using this style. I aim to make a statement that all bodies no matter how big or small are beautiful works of art. These 18 faceless illustrations ooze confidence with their various statures, colors and lines. Keeping these figures anonymous takes away a personal identity, only leaving a decorated body and its expression. This also helps the audience better relate to the figures by keeping their identities unknown. Some of these types have had their time to shine through various cultural ages, with their differing canons of beauty. Although, many of those same types have been labeled with negative terms today though social media. “My hope is that this reframing of beauty will create a feeling of self-acceptance in the viewer, countering the narrow vision of beauty that our social media driven-age seems to insist upon.” I want you to compare yourself to these illustrations in a positive way while embracing your own ‘imperfections.’ As a whole, this show is about how ALL people struggle equally to love their own form. I decided to use pixels as my medium to create Every Body because this is what the media constantly uses to tell us what we should and shouldn’t look like. I’m using these images to show the beauty in all types of bodies by abstracting them with the same drawing technique and similar hues. The hatching technique is used to emphasize and embrace the curves and structures of the human forms like we should embrace ourselves. Rather than neatly hatching and cross hatching to depict a naturalistic scene like Dürer, I am breaking down the photos into line and color, while skewing those hues that we normally see. This style separates the viewer requiring them to take a step back to look at the figures as works of art instead of pointing out the flaws of a photo. This repetition of line and color creates shading and accentuates their shapes while amplifying the tone of boldness and self-assurance. They are all framed in varying sizes to emphasize that we all have different body types, and they all are beautiful. With these illustrations, I have conveyed that not only should we celebrate all types of bodies, but we should also love the one we were given. Using a variation of lines and an array of bold colors, I have depicted various shapes and sizes to create adoration for the ‘imperfections’ and to encourage you to love your body a little more. With this series of illustrations there is nothing left but an anonymous technicolor figure created with lines forcing you to focus on what they really are, imperfect masterpieces. I hope that you walk away loving yourself and embracing all the shapes and colors that make you, you. KW - Body Empowerment KW - Women KW - Abstract Color KW - Pop Color KW - Portrait KW - Love KW - Men KW - Digital Illustration KW - Self-Love KW - Nude DA - 2020-5-10 PY - 2024 ER -