Sheila Pree Bright is a young photographer from my hometown, Atlanta, who I found out about this summer. These photographs are from her series "Plastic Bodies," in which she fuses images of Barbie dolls with those of real women of color.
There's something haunting about these images, the women disappearing into the rigid (and often white-normative) concepts of female beauty that the dolls demand. And yet the two sets of features so obviously conflict, suggesting that the women can never enter the dominant views of beauty (and therefore, of power and privilege). Bright reveals how powerless women of color become in the face of these ideals of beauty.
As much as I love art that provides commentary on art itself, as much as I love experimentations with media and spaces, I really appreciate Bright's work, because it's culturally significant and politically relevant. It's not realist-- but it's true, it's empowering, and it refuses to be colorblind.
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