Reflections by Stephanie Farr: Artist Statement for the DAUGHTERS Series

Sex drives consumption. It sells everything from dolls to drugs. The media’s portrayal of the glory experienced by the physically elite inundates us daily, enticing us to buy more things in hopes that we will then ourselves be able to embody sex. Its idolization permeates our society so thoroughly, that from the moment a girl holds her first Barbie, she begins measuring herself against an unattainable physical appearance. By the time a girl becomes a young woman, her identity has become so intertwined with the struggle to visually imitate impossible standards, that the fragility of her ego manifests as a desire to then seek validation from external sources. Because they cannot live up to the proliferated Adonis-like representation of the female form, a feeling of inferiority makes them easily suede to employ other means to prove their sexual prowess, and in turn as they envision, their self-worth. Popular culture insinuates that promiscuity, assigns a woman value. As young women try to imitate these behaviors in hopes of establishing a sense of worth, the true emotional consequences of such only serve to confuse them further.

Examining and showcasing the byproducts of this destructive, cyclical, cultural phenomena create the axle around which my work revolves. Daughters is a series that invites its viewers to begin to personalize the emotional gravity associated with the current position in which the represented female has found herself. Employing the very same mechanism as pop culture, the larger scale work often displays attractive female nudes. However, as the viewer takes a closer look, the truth is in the details and they are asked to consider how they would feel if the woman gazing back at them were a loved one.