Artist: Mary Ellen Judge | Location: Florence, SC
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Artist: Mary Ellen Judge | Location: Florence, SC
Florence, SC
I live in Florence, SC and have been teaching visual arts in Darlington County School District for 14 years. In Jan 2017, I will graduate with my Master's of Fine Arts from Lesley University in Cambridge MA. Besides a teacher, I am also a professional artist. Through traditional and non-traditional portraiture, my artwork analyzes women's stories about body practices and self-care, which specifically address the contradictions and complexities of the dominant feminist discourse. I explore the restricting facets of feminine beauty, cultural anxieties about female sexuality-its rites and representations in contemporary society today. I seek to reclaim feminine stereotypes that are deemed disgusting such as beauty rituals, pubic hair, and female bodily functions. I redefine femininity as an act of reclamation, an act of learning to love or at least accepting myself as I am, despite what society suggests.