‘Power On’ is an artwork created for the Praise You group show at @lightspacebrisbane on August 22nd 2019! Featuring a portrait of the immensely inspiring Simone Giertz 🤖🔩⚙️.
This show focuses on female empowerment and body positivity and I chose to draw Simone not only because she is a badass female inventor of ‘shitty’ robots among other useful and good things but also because of her recent brain tumor. Praise You donates all proceeds to the Butterfly Foundation, helping women deal with body image, mental health and eating disorders. Body image not only effects what we see in the mirror, but also what we can’t see and that’s a reality for many struggling with invisible illnesses. When our bodies fail us it effects us not only physically but mentally and changes our entire perspective on our body image, we become self conscious, hyper-aware of our vulnerability, it can be isolating and terrifying, whether that’s through an eating disorder, brain tumor or other illness or disability, the effect on our body image is the same.
Simone Giertz has been very public about her journey and that is a blessing for others going through tough times, especially in this social media era where we can edit out all the rough parts of our lives. I wanted to highlight strong women who persist despite the obstacles their body may throw at them, whether it’s physically perceptible to others or not. She’s charming, funny, creative, vulnerable, emotional and succeeds in a male dominant field with grace and humor while remaining true to herself and taking the rest/time to heal she needs. She has a dark sense of humour and wild ideas and if you haven’t seen any of her videos check out her Youtube Channel.
This is a one off 15x15inch print framed by the wonderful people at Forman Picture Framing. Follow @praiseyou.co on instagram for updates and info! Thanks to @lusidart and @une_piece for inviting me to be involved in this special show!