The series ‘Body Becoming’ aims to construct beauty out of what appears outwardly grotesque while questioning the resilience of the body. The images intensify the space between youth and decrepitude as figures within the work take on the roles of mother and daughter. The daughter fears what time has done to the mother, not the mother herself. She fears the weight of flesh, the pull of gravity, the uncertainty of health, things that are set in flesh and blood.
Body Becoming in itself is an act of abjection. It repels the mother and her wilting qualities. The photographs exemplify as well as subvert abject qualities. However, the work is unclear if this 'abject' is truly unacceptable; and so, the series represents both sides of a coin. On one side, it embraces the abject and the ugly; on the other, it creates a subjectivity that humanizes the decay of the mother figure. Seduction and desire collide with the abject here. It creates a convoluted space where the viewer is drawn to the abject and unflinchingly senses its sexuality. Tension is created when the desirable does not align with beauty, which leaves the viewers to question their feelings towards both.
The images reveal the similarities in shape and size that the related bodies take on. The mixing notions of genetic lineage, the process of aging, and the lack of control presented by destiny, exacerbates an anxiety, which speaks to a profound fear of becoming the mother. Working against such genetics is like waging a war on nature. Witnessing this fluctuation of becoming and unbecoming within the work is like watching a fruit ripen past the point of consumption. The series pushes normative perceptions of fertility, illness, the abject, and beauty to a placed where those lines are blurred – where the decay is just as beautiful as youth.