“body a(r)mor iii” - Zoe Schwartz
“I am an emerging artist based in New York City. I graduated with a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Michigan in 2016 and I am currently a sculpture MFA candidate at the Rhode Island School of Design, 2022.
I am a Jewish Filipina American, a hybrid of two hyper feminine archetypes; the Jewish American Princess and the Pinay Beauty Queen. Generations of assimilation, colonization and genocide taught my matriarchs to internalize the white male gaze. It wasn’t until I paused to look in the mirror that I saw her. She understands the importance of performance and appearances because she knows, in a world that will not protect you, there is safety in conforming to feminine norms. She uses her knowledge of pop culture, beauty standards, humor, class symbols and social acceptability, to imitate and perform desirable [white] femininity and achieve objecthood. She knows becoming an object of desire provides an illusion of protection, but she is still vulnerable to real danger. She feels your gaze, depending on how safe she feels, she may open up, deflect, misdirect, camouflage or politely decline. She reflects her environment and evolves over time. She is art, artist, and audience; hypervisible and Miss Understood.”
