BAD GALS (PAINTINGS)

2018, Ongoing

The idea of 'BAD GALS' seemed to naturally take form after Gretel graduated in the summer of 2018. Gretel continued to create drawings and paintings of voluptuous women as a ploy to find inner peace with her own natural form. Gretel continued to make use of spray paint and graffiti markers, but chose to display these manifestations of her ideas on large canvases, opposed to paper. 

 This project is a very personal one to Gretel, as she has struggled with body-image related issues  for many years. Since a very young age she experienced a particular struggle with accepting the size and appearance of her legs; finding herself facing a sense of deep sadness and self-hatred, since as long as she can remember.  It is only in the past year that she has discovered a way of seeking a sense of peace with her struggle and a means to combat the years of hatred that she had felt- and that is through the birth of BAD GALS. 

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These thick and curvy women are not to be mistaken for only that. They are  colourful, fun, intelligent an powerful women- women that have qualities that make aesthetics seem inconsequential. BAD GALS is all about confronting negative thoughts and emotions and taking ownership of them, before they consume you. It is about embracing and celebrating every aspect of your existence, it is about  exploring yourself and discovering that your power and beauty transcends anything as trivial as physicalities and materialism. It is about making mistakes and feeling sad. It is about accepting that some days you may hate yourself, and some days things wont be okay, but through BAD GALS you begin to learn to take the negative energy and transform it into something great. It is about being unconditionally you.