SHOULDN'T
Hannah Gross
In this series, I wanted to explore my identity as a woman through looking at things society thinks women “shouldn’t” be. I decided to use face and body paint to create images that exhibited these
concepts. Originally I was going to do them with friends for ease of taking the photos and discussion of
the topics, but due to extenuating circumstances I ended up modeling them myself.
Messy
From the very beginning of childhood to throughout adulthood, we are told not to be messy. “Don’t get your clothes dirty,” “cross your legs when you sit,” “keep your room/desk/house tidy.” We are taught to be “little ladies.” But that’s not for everyone. There is such joy in allowing yourself to be messy, because often that’s when real creativity and hard work are accomplished.
Depressed
The perfect 50’s housewife ideal that is presented in the media couldn’t be further from the truth. Women ran themselves ragged trying to keep up a perfect home, raise the children, and always have a hot meal waiting for their husband. Many became depressed and were committed to mental hospitals by their husbands because ‘a woman must be insane if she is unhappy when she has everything she
could possibly wish for.’ Still today, women are ridiculed for being “too emotional” and “crying too much." I decided to use this idea and juxtapose the trappings of the “ideal life” with the paint representing the feelings of depression.
Everyone experiences emotions differently. To me, crushing sadness feels as though my limbs are full of heavy, wet sand. The paint in this picture represents this feeling; it is creeping up the arms and will soon take over the body. There comes a point where all that is left is numbness and immense tiredness where
there once was sense.
Powerful
Most CEO’s and billionaires are male. Only recently did we get real female-superhero movies. Historical figures such as Cleopatra were fashioned into seductresses because how could a woman be powerful if she hadn’t slept her way to the top? We have had 45 male presidents and never one female. The list is endless. Society is afraid of powerful women.
The genesis of this image was a drawing I did during my friend’s MFA dance thesis proposal a few months back. I was watching the dancers and doodling and had drawn a tiger’s eye in the corner of the page with the words “wild thing” underneath. I gave her the paper and she later told me that was her favorite piece of it. I originally wanted this friend to model the tiger paint. She’s strong and fierce and it would be so perfect for her.
A tiger does not have to be leaping and snarling to strike fear in the heart. A woman does not have to be anything but herself to be powerful. She’s here, she’s got her eye on you, and she’s ready to take you down.
