Good is dead

This thesis focuses on a visual re-representation of tales from the Old Testament, a canon throughout the history of Western art. I place constructed plasticized models within Biblical allegories in order to satirize the representations of the body evident throughout history as well as those present in contemporary media. In the thesis work I seek to bridge a gap between the past and present. I want the images to dwell between the intended moral pedagogy of the Bible and contemporary society’s perceived deviance, by linking historical painting and current digital photography, and between antique ideals of the body and present-day distortions of those ideals. In this work, I utilize appropriated imagery from contemporary periodicals to illustrate how the manipulation of the body has evolved through centuries of painting dominated by a male perspective. This practice continues to be pushed in current digital practice. In this work, I digitally collage scanned images from fitness, fashion, celebrity, and pornographic magazines to create monstrous people. These creatures I create are as much a comment on the fabrication and retouching of personalities in the media as the strains people place on their bodies to achieve a more “acceptable” appearance