This painting narrates the personal story of Elana. Elana is an exceptional taxidermy and wood sculpture artist. She feels as though she infuses the life back into the objects that she creates. She has compared it to being a puppet master, and states that she is “making companions for herself”. In the painting, she is shown with tassels (puppet strings) coming from her hair. The life-like raccoon on her head is one of her “companions”. The raccoon also represents somewhat of a mischievous character, not unlike Elana. The circle on her cheek represents her interest the macabre, specifically collecting creepy clown items. She finds beauty in the abnormal, which you can see as a focus embodied in her work. Although the characteristics of beauty and the abnormal oppose one another in one sense, they also compliment one another and add complexity and intrigue to beauty. All situations exist because of the balancing of opposing forces and although these forces appear to be separate, they are in fact the same. The up and down overlapping triangles behind her symbolize this balance. The circle behind her however, represents her focus in life, which is her art. Like Most artists, Elana has not had an easy path, the details of which she does not feel comfortable disclosing, but she is focused on making her life more stable with the power of her creativity and her drive to be a successful artist. The horizontal lines protruding from the circle represent that levelness that she is striving for.

I use the technique of chiaroscuro (high contrast from light to dark) to reference how a woman’s depth can only be rendered with her darkest of shadows present as well as her light. I want to step away from the assumption that the female nude has to be reduced to dehumanized sex symbol or an allegorical figure of purity to be well received. The personal stories of female subjects are scarcely told and often censored. I intend to show that beauty is incomplete without the humanizing experiences that a woman obtains throughout her life. I utilize wood as the foreground to illustrate the raw nature of the content