This is mural I worked on for almost 2 years, which analyzes gender and the female experience. Below is my artist statement for this piece.  

In our visual based culture, images are viewed passively and taken for face value. Images in the media provide examples of how gender should be performed, and give directions to the consumer for what they are suppose to look and behave like. Therefore, these images may be familiar to viewers based on images they are likely to have seen elsewhere.

 The cycle of gender is set up to run with the accuracy of a factory assembly line: the instructions are read visually, created through repetitive actions and behavior, and produce an unquestioning, gendered body at the other end. If an individual strays from the instructions, that person could be outcast from society.  The familiar images in Face Value are intended to highlight the way in which this tradition is limiting and perpetuated through images. People are not only the consumers of gender, but also the creators of it. This cycle is made visual as one figure pulls back the curtain to view the scene, and as the figure emerging from behind the curtain, ushering the young girls into the scene.

Face Value is female centric to highlight the way in which the gender binary places women in the subjugate position, and the manner in which visual culture represents them as faceless, sex objects. Face Value’s narratives also employs objects that have been personified or equated as “feminine” throughout history to act as a metaphor for female stereotypes. The mirror: reflects obsession and necessity of vanity; the vase: purposeless but decorative; the teapot: a utilitarian vessel meant for filling, similar to her womb; and a pedestal: that might keep her fragile body from harm. Associating goods with images of attractive women to solicit the viewer’s attention recalls a common visual device and symbolizes the way in which women simultaneously become objects for the consumer. The narrative is illustrated in black and white to reflect the antiquity of gendered stereotypes, and represent the way gender is presented to society in polarized terms. Every depiction suggests a male presence whether he is seen or not, and a lingering expectation that she must always be ready for his gaze.  She no longer has ownership over herself, but becomes an object for the viewer’s eye.