You're so pretty

The beauty ideal never leaves our psyche and as we grow up -- replacing paper dolls with fashion icons and ornaments -- these ideals stay with us. As women, we deal with the reminder of our physical selves -- how we are continuously evaluated, ogled and looked at throughout a normal day. We are constantly aware of how our bodies determine our overall value by society.

This beauty evaluation starts when we are young. The whimsical fantasies of a little girl's playthings are infiltrated with society's beauty standards. These beauty standards are found in a girl's toys, the colors of her clothes, the sparkles on her princess crown. As a child, mine were most blatantly found in the dolls I played with. They manifested the desire to grow up and into an idyllic image.

The materials used for this series You're So Pretty, represent the objects of my childhood that shape the way I am told to value my beauty and others as an adult. Using a decidedly "feminine" style, this body of work reflects what a girl is told to identify with as female and beautiful.

As a society, we tend to discount the delicate and ornamental as less respectable and intelligent. Yet young girls' toys are all of these things: From princess costumes, to bejeweled necklaces and shoes, to the frilly dolls and accessories. This work attempts to bring to light the continuous struggle of both feminism and the constricted concept of what is considered so pretty.