Kelowna Art Gallery Member's Exhibition

November 17, 2007 - January 13, 2008

My submission; "Perspective " ~ 24" x 30" mixed media on canvas

PERSPECTIVE ~ many people still feel that body piercing, tattoos and hoodies are for convicts or white trash. I have combined these elements with a Madonna like portraiture. It is with this contrast I wish to show the conflict between the perceived value placed upon an individual by the individual herself and that of societial judgment.

she told me ...

This was not a little piece of jewelry; it's a way of expressing herself that's very important to her. She thought that face jewelry can be beautiful and interesting and sexy, and that can be a good enough reason to get one by itself, but it's also a statement that she didn’t need society as a whole to approve of everything she did. She was confident enough in herself and her abilities to have this piercing that will make some people assume things about her that aren't true, and challenging (and hopefully changing) those preconceptions is important enough to her to be willing to deal with it on an everyday basis.

Not everyone who gets a piercing has to think like this maybe all you want to do is hang outside the mall with your labret piercing and your manic panic hair dye and your hoodie, and that's a role you're comfortable assuming. And there is nothing wrong with that. But that's not who she is. She’s a young woman about to enter a doctorate program for English. She owns a spinning wheel and loves to knit. She also has one tattoo and eight piercings, including a lip ring. And all of those qualities are equally important to her in describing who she is. Maybe she didn't strike some people as the kind of person who would get a labret piercing, but like she said—that wasn't her problem, it's theirs for believing that stereotype to begin with. She’s the kind of person who gets a lip ring. And even if she takes this piercing out tomorrow, that will still be who she is.