Jen Davis is one of the decade’s most original photographers. Lee Marks and Aperture will be presenting a joint exhibition of her work during reGeneration2. The book and the exhibition were curated by Nathalie Herschdorfer and William Ewing.
This is how she describes her work:
The perfect body image in this culture requires that one be thin. Images of perfectly fit individuals saturate the visual media, creating icons which establish a norm that makes all else seem to be deviant. Overweight people do not satisfy what is attractive or desired. In this body of work, I deal with my insecurities about my body image and the direct correlation between self-perception and the way one is perceived by others. Most of my pictures take place in my home, revealing aspects of myself that are private and personal. I am evaluating my self-image, as an obese female in her 20s, dealing with ever-present pressures from the outside world. This process of self-exploration has helped to lay the foundation of finding my voice and recognizing my actions and insecurities. My work is solely based on personal experiences that I have re-constructed into a photograph, but I believe that it speaks generally to the situation of many women in our culture.
