Full

Gwendolyn Anne Davies

The project Full is a companion project to Claiming Space. While the images of Claiming Space emphasize the figure, body image and self confidence, Full shows how the woman able to stand before the camera with confidence lives. Using a performative approach in my self-portraits, I explore what it means to be a full-figured independent woman taking ownership of her body, her lifestyle, and the spaces she inhabits. Images and stories that are told work to form social expectations. Though they are not found as a written code, they are still the pressures we feel: pressure to look a certain way, pressure to get married, and have a family, and pressure simply to live in a way that is “normal”. The title, Full, is drawn from the ideas of being a full-figured woman but also references the full life that I lead. By taking self-portraits I seek to show myself as I want to be seen. They tell a story of a woman who strong, independent, and beautiful; she is not a character, she is me.