With my work, I am very interested in the body-self relationship and its relationship to the natural world. There is a term called Objectified Body Consciousness, which has two definitions. The first is the experience (and subsequent subject of research) of viewing one’s body as an object separate from one’s self. The second is an individual’s body-self relationship primarily focusing on the appearance of one’s body as seen by a third party. This has little, to nothing to do, with how the person physically feels or what their body can physically do. Having been an athlete from an early age, I participated in sports from ice hockey to triathlons, yet struggled with issues of self-conception and physical appearance.
The constant discipline and determination of being an athlete is similar to the way I approach art making. Both are very self-directed, repetitive, and meditative forms of creating; both are constructing the person I want to be and portraying the parts I want people to see. The forms I display in my work are things of beauty. Furthermore, I want to show a connection of these forms to those found in the natural world. Since we, as human beings, are natural forms as well, I find it fascinating to see how harmony arises when pairing these figurative and natural images through layering or creating diptychs; I am thus uniting different aspects of a whole without losing the identity of each component.
Rather than sheer objectification, I am interested in the investigation of patterns and textures that most would not normally take the time to fully consider. By using small sections of my own body I attempt to push my work into something relatable and universal, although not immediately identifiable. By creating work that focuses on small segments of my body, I am slowly coming to accept what make me a person as a whole.

Human Nature by Angela Young

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