Alexia Furtado
Good Thing You're Pretty
Good Thing You're Pretty uses fashion magazines to create collages that comment on the unachievable expectations of women and my experience disconnecting how I see myself from other's perceptions of me. Since I was young, everyone older than me associated me with all things fashion and beauty. "Good thing you're pretty" was often directed towards me by family and friends -- a dig at me intelligence, causing me to question the limits if my own potential. I was seen as something to look at, and inadvertently be overlooked.
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The world of beauty, I now know, is fabricated. Magazines airbrush and edit photographs to idealize the appearance of women. Cutting, folding, or ripping out these images allows me to control and manipulate the forms. I destroy and rearrange different figures together, at times parts of the same body compressed inot a new form, to create a monstrous body. I focus on the impossibly flawless images of women while cutting off heads, arms, hands, legs, and feet, forging delusions of the ideal body.
Bio:
Alexia Furtado is an artist from Peabody Massachusetts, graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Art and Communication from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her inspiration comes from her own experiences with femininity, fashion and beauty. She incorporates many mediums into her practice such as fiber arts, sculpture, collage and jewelry making.
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Alexia's past work explores the relationship society has with clothing and beauty standards. Through this work she aims to expose the complicated feelings associated with bodies, how they are dressed, and how they are perceived. In future works she hopes to continue this theme using fabric and found images to create sculptures that expand the series, Good Thing You're Pretty.
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