"You Don't Bring Me Flowers" is a deeply personal collage series that began during the pandemic, exploring my own emotions and experiences within the frameworks of historical femininity, beauty, and desire. This work juxtaposes vintage nude photography with vases of flowers to challenge and dissect the constructed ideals of romantic beauty and the male gaze.
The series showcases pin-up girls, representing a hyper-feminine ideal with exaggerated curves and seductive poses, contrasted against the delicate beauty and traditional romantic symbolism of flowers. This juxtaposition questions the expectations placed on women and critiques how romantic and feminine ideals are constructed and performed.
In the series, each collage captures a sense of being confined, perhaps mirroring the isolation I felt during the pandemic, and prompting a dialogue the past and present. Through this, the series encourages viewers to reflect on how these historical images and ideals continue to shape and influence our understanding of femininity and interpersonal relationships today.
The isolation of the pandemic is long over but i continue to use You Don't Bring Me Flowers series as a vessel to delve deeper into my experiences. The ongoing project serves not only as a refelction of a unique period in history but also as a space to continuously explore and express evolvonig aspects of personal identity, societal roles and emotional landscape. Through these collages I invite viewers to join in a collective introspection, examining how our shared experiences and individual journeys intersect and influence our perceptions of beauty, desire and self.
