No Matter How You Slice It

Acrylic, flashe, ink, and colored pencil on canvas.

48x54x1.50"

"They cut her down into smaller pieces, make her easier to consume.

They pull her apart,
little by little,
slice by slice,
analyze every fiber of her in the process.

They label her,
celebrate her,
criticize her,
pretend to befriend her,
rebel against her boundaries,
test her, push her,
they put her on a pedestal,
they knock her down.

“No offense”, they say before they pick her apart.

They fill in the parts of her story with their own anecdotes.
They jump to their own conclusions,
they rewrite her truths and reinvent her image,
then they change it back again, and on and on and on and on it goes."
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The She’s A Sweet Peach collection is a satirical body of work that explores the way North American society perceives and speaks about women and the female body. In reference to the overused peach emoji in popular culture, women’s body parts are often compared to the likeness of fruit: either ripe, juicy and begging to be enjoyed; or rotten, past its prime, ready to be discarded, no longer valuable if slightly bruised, imperfect, or showing signs of age. A fruit serves one purpose - it is meant to be consumed, it is not permitted to just “be”.

LaCaria presents the concept of the contemporary woman as a ripening peach on the brink of expiry through an exploration of themes rooted in alternative lifestyles, the patriarchy and sexuality that have been explored in the past by classical male artists through their objectification of the female body. By removing the figurative representation of the female body from the conversation, LaCaria is relying on the suggestive nature of peaches to represent female body parts - arguably a more uncomfortable experience for the viewer than the commonly digested and accepted visual of an objectified female body.

Instructions & criticisms to the artist are handwritten in each frame to inspire doubt in the viewer as to whether the works are complete or in progress; a commentary on how women’s quest for equality, self-betterment & professional aspirations seems to be a constant “work in progress”, ever-changing, shifting, but also perfectly imperfect.