Hersteria

Hersteria explores the absurdity and cognitive dissonance and disintegration women experience when they attempt to control and shape themselves into an idealized female form to have value. The American media imposes taxing expectations that effectively manipulate us into perpetuating our own oppression. Do we accept and conform to a particular femininity or resist these pressures?

This ongoing project layers observation with artifice by including both real-world locations and staged sets, spontaneous moments and imagined scenes, returning subjects and penetrating self-portraits. The female model serves as a psychological proxy, representing the desires, longings, and fantasies proposed and exploited by consumer culture. They also convey the acknowledgment that the female body is itself a fact and has inalienable power. By exploring the complex interplay between longing and shame, Hersteria inverts messaging focused on the enshrinement of youth, beauty and sexuality as potent sources of status.