Male Nude

As an artist I like to bring out social problems in my art to help start larger conversations. In this project I wanted to discuss and bring out the power of self image. 

The “ideal body type” seen in so many social media platforms is harming the positive self image and loving of one’s own body in today’s society. This piece combines charcoal and conté to represent the natural and realistic shape of the body. Then I am creating the model's “ideal body image”, pressured upon him from society's expectations. This is expressed with the pops of color  on top and around the real body to express the imaginative and desired “ideal body”. The color represents the fantasy and unrealistic body that the subject would like to have based on societal pressures. This composition sets up a contrast between the real and the imaginary, the grayscale versus the color. This balance is where we should sit in our self image; one of acceptance and loving who we are and what we look like, but also accepting that there may be unrealistic goals that cannot be met that can come from the “ideal body” that society has created. Instead of this we need to focus on why we want to look a certain way and take into account what is good for our own bodies. Through exercise, eating healthy, and being happy we can be in an even better place where our ideal image has to do with the functional aspects of our bodies, our own ideas about what we want to look like because we want to and not because society has told us that this look is the “attractive look,” and finally having a positive self image based on how we feel and what we can do rather than listening to the self esteem wreckers of advertising.  Individuality will go missing if we are all the same shape and size, so strive to love your individual body type instead of changing it to fit the “perfect” notions that you think are out there. God made us in His perfect image, so there is nothing you can do better than what God has already created. Rejoice in your body and treat it as the temple God tells you it is, because someone out there is looking for you to live life with and fit together like God created puzzle pieces.