| Description |
The pressure of perfection can either inspire great achievements or be like a debilitating disease. My research and art deal with how perfectionistic tendencies affect the lives of young to middle aged, American women. Perfectionism can lead these individuals to interpret social trends and styles as incredibly important expectations that they must live up to. Failure to meet those self-imposed expectations can lead to feelings of inadequacy that affect not only how one feels about oneself, but how self-centered one's view of the world is, resulting in weaker relationships and loss of confidence. These weakened relationships stem from perceptions of how their peers view them. The perfectionist says, "If this what I think of myself, then this is what everyone else must think of me also. One of the problems of American society today involves the sacrifice of the individual's confident sense of self as they attempt, and ultimately fail, to keep up with the latest trends and expectations of a competitive, comparing society. In my experience, the art world has rejected images that promote a Rockwellian ideal. How do we as artists become healthier as a community without promoting the virtues that traditionally support; happiness and well-being in art? As a figurative and portrait painter, I have realized that my portraits are; indeed a representation of not only those who sit for me, but also of myself. I came to certain questions with my work that seemed to conflict with the modern art world I experienced in New York City. Where did contemporary realist figurative painting fit in the greater; scheme of the art world? Also how could it resonate if art critics like Clement Greenberg at large had written French Academic figure painting off a hundred years ago at the emergence of Modernism? My aim is to make narrative portraiture fresh and interesting again, using the medium to portray the human; condition with a focus on the mixed messages society portrays about women. |
