Earthen Bodies by Kamryn Woloschuk
Earthen Bodies: An Ode to the Venus of Willendorf
Many women live every waking moment in fear that someone is going to see them, really see them — their rolls, their stretch marks, their shame. I want to say “let them see” and show our flesh for what it is — as natural as the stone of the Venus of Willendorf or the clay in these images, formed from ancient atoms and changed throughout time. These are images of real women, their real bodies, and real clay, merged together.
Like the ceramics process of wedging, in which a sculptor repeatedly compresses clay to remove imperfections and prepare it for sculpting, fat bodies undergo constant compression. Some fat folks respond to the discomfort with defiantly loud confidence; many others respond by hiding their personalities to compensate for the physical space they occupy. The subject of these images becomes an object in her merging with the clay — she appears not as a person one might recognize but merely as a grounds for aesthetic and moral judgement.
My life changed when I learned about the Venus of Willendorf sculpture; she enlightened me to a history of fat bodies in art that my younger self would have never imagined to exist. To be seen as art, as you are, is powerful. It’s a way of living— a belief that all existence is inherently, beautifully sacred.
Art by Kamryn Woloschuk |
Kamryn Woloschuk (b. 2001) is a queer multidisciplinary artist from Thunder Bay, Canada, who’s practice consists mainly of photography and poetry. She embraces diverse methods and works in both analogue and digital formats, ranging from traditional landscapes to experimental portraits. Recipient of the Luna Bursary at the School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa, as well as a Youth, Art & Cultural Funding grant from the City of Thunder Bay for a documentary book on youth mental illness, Woloschuk is dedicated to her practice not only as an outlet for self-expression, but also as a means to contribute to conversations on mental health, feminism, and community.
