As a little kid growing up on Disney Channel, I grew up idolizing figures that were inherently skinny because there was little to no representation of different body types in the media. In my work today, I aim to represent different body types in positive ways. As a kid with a bigger body, I never really felt like I belonged with all the other kids on the playground. I felt so out of place that in 6th grade, I thought I thought I was incredibly big when in reality I was skin and bones. As an adult, I still struggle with my body, and I want to represent different body types in a positive light so that everyone can feel seen in my art series.

I play with the idea of life and death through this series by using mushrooms, a fungus normally associated with decay, on human bodies that are not in decay. This series follows my previous series where organs displaced from the body are paired with different plants that don’t necessarily represent decay. This series is done with green and red/pink complimentary colors in watercolor, colored pencil, and ink. The green represents a happy full of life surrounding while the red represents the body.