Stephanie Allen: In My Skin, Her Skin

In My Skin, Her Skin by Stephanie Allen
May 1 - 14, 2022

Reception: Saturday, April 23, 6 p.m.

This exhibition is an artistic investigation of queer femininity and body image. As our bodies and identities are so deeply intertwined, this project explores the way in which the body and presentation create and structure perceptions of queerness, gender, and beauty. Each drawing represents an individual— realistically, their appearance and abstractly, their relationship with their body and queer identity. Based on interviews with queer women and non-binary people, this show depicts the personal navigation of labels and each individual's developing understanding of self. 

This, in essence, is a show of coming out. Of coming clean. Of recognizing that a body is just that: a body. As we deconstruct expectations of femininity, physique, and queerness we are able to find freedom in and freedom from labels. Slowly, the gap between art and personhood may begin to close.

About Stephanie Allen

Stephanie Allen is a multimedia artist whose work is driven by the question of who owns the female body and what that sense of ownership means on an individual, political, and interpersonal level. She critiques the visual code switch that frequently happens when one shifts from looking at the female form in art to looking at it in life. By drawing the personal and social struggle for bodily autonomy, she aims to reclaim the female body and its artistic representation.