Available! $900
Age of Knowledge, 1994: Women, Domesticity and Objects of Power
bronze, wood, mirror 26”h x 14”w x 9”d
I know Rae had fun making this piece. The concept was straightforward. She had been working for some time with the FatAn collective, preparing an anthology of works on Fat Activism. She was never thin, though I do remember a time when we could wear the same jeans. But she was a feminist, and outraged at the culture of artificial beauty that surrounds us. She knew from experience that she could not lose her weight and keep her health, and who she was.
The modern image of female beauty is fairly recent, in its thinness, at least. If you look at classical statues, the proportions of the women in them are much rounder than anything you’d see in a magazine. So this piece is a statement of how our perspective has literally changed. The columns (made from wedding cake decorations!) and the pulchritudinous forms lounging at their feet represent classical beauty. The mirror is made intentionally too thin to ever be able to see all of yourself in it, no matter how thin, and so is an analog to the internal image many women have that they are fat.
Happy Imbolc!