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power and burden of beauty
Continuing an exploration of beauty’s social meanings and costs, the artist’s 2009 exhibition Power and Burden of Beauty defines beauty in consumerist terms that are universally recognizable, while recreating it in forms that can be as bracing as a snowdrift. Her visual vocabulary includes pageant winners, their trophies and flowers, their tiaras and formal wear. Individually, these works confront viewers with accepted notions of beauty as our shared cultural legacy of outward appearances. When they are gathered into a gallery setting where we mingle with them and other viewers, they mediate us as the imperative to look good mediates us in our social milieu—requiring us to judge, to be judged, to compete, to conform.
