Christy E. O’Connor – “Unhygienic” mixed media assemblage

The following work examines body hair, and how it is seen and scrutinized as unclean, unhygenic, and dirty.  The choice to grow out body hair, should be a personal one.  However, society dictates the rules of engagement on this issue and ownership of our own bodies (especially for women), as up for debate.Unhygenic is an abstract mixed media assemblage is a juxtaposition of a cracked sterile background with tufts if hair and wire forming from the cracks.Dirty is a deconstructed female torso representing the pelvis and underarm areas. The deconstruction of the form was essential to the idea, that, as women we are deconstructed daily into our parts and the simple choice to grow body hair somehow devalues those women, seen as dirty.