Money, Beauty, Rank
Money, Power, Rank: The Measure of All Things is rooted in connecting and contrasting various notions of a woman’s bodily autonomy and agency with the visual iconography of desire, ornamentation, and beauty found in historical narratives, contemporary media, and design. My intention for the work is to pose under-addressed questions about the contradicting social messages that on the one hand valorize the symbolic freedom attained by consumer choice, in particular, luxury goods to enhance empowerment, well-being, or superficial status while actual rights and protection for women are rolled back legislatively.
All is for the best..., Magazine collage, vellum, fabric, gold embellishments
All is for the best... detail
All is for the best… is composed of square collages arranged with fragments of imagery cut from luxury high-fashion magazines and interspersed with geometric shapes of red paper. The 12 collages are unified into a gridded composition with a shimmering backing of silver fabric and embellished with jewelry chains and tassels. The work’s layered iconography combines elements reminiscent of the “mood” or “vision” boards used in the development of interior decorating schemes and advertising campaigns. The collaged composition suggests symbolic ranking motifs of military uniform and the dynamic geometries recall early 20th century constructivist design. In mixing the aspirational motifs of luxury goods, military uniforms and the visual language of the avant- guard, putting forth a shaded critique of the way the economies of desire militantly reinforce the status quo and use the desire to accumulate more beauty as the most noble of ideals.