Tattooed on the Body

Description

All our experiences, inherited or lived, are exhibited on our bodies.

In the 21st century, we have an over reliance on measurements of the body. How do we measure success? How do we measure beauty?

We create value judgments associated with measurement and numbers:

• height number
• hair length number
• eye spacing number
• bust size number
• weight number
• age number

There is a correlation of higher wage numbers with lower weight and lower wage values with higher weight.  Women who are slender are more successful in the market place.  Men who are tall, receive higher wages. Our statistics, without our permission, are tattooed on our bodies.

Many years ago, when I was pregnant with my only child, I participated in a swim class at the YMCA. Because it was a daytime class, I was surrounded, in the locker room, by many older women.  Their bodies were one – breast, two – breast, no – breast, tall, short, lean, fat, limber, stiff, confined to wheel chair, tight skin, loose skin, wrinkles and folds…And they were all beautiful.  As I gazed I realized that they wore their lives tattooed on their bodies. To me, they were the most lovely, authentic tattoos I had ever seen.

Mixed media .

Wall Art: Textile, mixed media.

[su_box title=”Susan Hensel” box_color=”#2a6bb0″] Susan Hensel is a multidisciplinary artist, with a 50+ year career, who combines a mixed media practice with embroidery across digital and manual platforms. Susan received her BFA from the University of Michigan in 1972 with a double major in painting and sculpture and a concentration in ceramics. With a history, to date, of over 200 exhibitions, more than 30 of them solo, twenty garnering awards. Above all, Hensel’s desire to communicate stories through art continues to be a powerful motivator. Hensel’s artwork is known and collected nationwide, represented in collecting libraries and museums. [/su_box]