The Life and Death of The Bearded Woman

2024

The Life and Death of The Bearded Woman is a part of my ongoing body of work, I Was Here – The Bearded Woman, which is about my experience as a woman with polycystic ovarian syndrome and lipedema.

In the early 2023 creation of The Bearded Woman, I focused on accepting my newfound PCOS diagnosis through body positivity. Now, a year later, I have shifted to a darker, more frustrated mindset where I am actively pursuing ultimate body neutrality, which entails thinking about the way I will no longer be required to hold any aesthetic merit when I am deceased and imagining myself as a cortical homunculus.

This web of thoughts and resentment has built up to me feeling as though I’m screaming into the void, “Do you fear me? Do I turn you on? Just look at me, damnit, witness me in all my horrifying glory. Look at these parts that you’ve asked me to hide, look at how they’re burying me alive.”

This sub-series is the accumulation of my paradoxical chasing of stereotypical erotic, feminine beauty while being somebody who could be categorized as a freak circus attraction.

To read more about polycystic ovarian syndrome (a chronic hormone disorder) and the way it affects myself and 10% of other women, please refer to my I Was Here – The Bearded Woman artist statement.

Y-Shaped Incision, Untitled (Willow), White Flag, Vagina Dentata One, and Do You Fear Me? Do I Turn You On? are alternative process prints utilizing my menstrual blood gum bichromate print formula.