Maddy Olson
Art - BFA
The Divide, 2020, foam, fabric, plaster, acrylic, puffy paint, printing ink, 42 x 24 x 46 inches
In my work I explore how social and digital media reinforces the gender binary while influencing and dividing our masculine and feminine identities. I articulate these ideas through merging material and color to forms that relate to the body. In The Divide, the body is merged into a mountainous landscape, heavy in its apathetic rest. Through a soft interior that is splitting its own harder exterior to expose a vulnerability, I use color for its emotional and symbolic effect. I directly represent femininity with a pink softness that becomes contaminated by a sort of sickness.