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The piece is an oil painting on a medium-sized square canvas. It is rendered semi-realistically and has an overall unnerving or unsettling tone. On a bright orange background, a constricted figure wearing a white bra and underwear sits in the middle of the composition. She has vivid, unnaturally green-tinted skin and dark hair that reaches her chest. She is harshly lit from the left, casting a stark shadow on the right side of the composition. Her head is turned to the left, but her large, tearful, bloodshot eyes stare straight at the viewer. Mascara runs faintly down her cheeks, and she is wearing thickly-applied red lipstick. She is clearly in a state of distress or delirium. A white bra strap wraps around her mouth and around the back of her head. Her arms and legs extend to the four corners of the painting, constricted in certain spots by small white straps. The straps are wound so tightly around the body parts that they appear to be bisecting them. The torso is unnaturally squeezed into three distinct lumps of flesh. The figure’s bra appears rigid and raises her chest from the rest of her torso. The skin is red and irritated in all of the spots where the bra, underwear, or bra straps squeeze the body. Blue, purple, and green veins appear in the torso, chest, thighs, and arms. The armpits, inner thighs, and left shin (from the audience’s perspective) are dotted with small red razor bumps.

THE CONFINES

Chloe Schans

Oil on Canvas

Womanhood is not something I feel connected to– I feel more like a person without a subcategory. Nonetheless, the expectation to reflect a specific “ideal” in terms of physical appearance has been so pervasive throughout my life that it’s nearly impossible to fully disengage with it today, no matter how badly I'd like to. THE CONFINES expresses the unease that arises from being an unwilling perpetuator of impossible expectations.