[dissertation] BODY IMAGE and SELF-DETERMINATION: RESPONSE FROM 3 CONTEMPORARY FEMALE ARTISTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction

• Chapter I - Beauty, Body Image and Cosmetic Surgery

• Chapter II - Jenny Saville and Obese Bodies

• Chapter III - Sheila Pree Bright and Barbie Dolls

• Chapter IV - ORLAN and Carnal Art

• Conclusion

• List of illustration

• Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

This essay will attempt to investigate the reasons why people’s desire for body modification and how contemporary artists reflected their feeling to this kind of human behaviour. ‘Your face, your fate.’, which is a Hong Kong idiom, elaborating the phenomenon that your appearance will affect others’ attitude to you. It seems is the reason why people care their outlook so much.

It is undeniable that everybody desires to show the best side of himself/ herself to others since we all are a member of good looks club to a certain extent. In this essay, will focus on those take extreme actions to physical permanently change their appearance so as to fulfill their craving. However, whose standards of beauty they are following? Along with advanced medical technology, it does harm on human bodies since all surgeries have inherent risks. Take the chin contouring surgery as an example, the patients need several weeks or months for recovery, and they might have inflection, nerve damage and even death. Moreover, the result is irreversible and hard to reshape if there is any dissatisfaction. Are they do that just for beauty? These questions will be looked into in Chapter I in sociology and psychology ways, to find out the motion is influenced externally or internally.

Then will discuss 3 female artists in separated chapters, Jenny Saville, Sheila Pree Bright and ORLAN, both are well-known as reclaiming female bodies through their works, and they have their own artistic style and media. Saville mostly painted obese woman, and there is a series of photograph taken of herself will be discussed as well. Her works lead people to rethink what is beauty. Bright raised the mass media effect on beauty standard by digitally merging the photographs of Barbie dolls and real human beings. ORLAN use her body release the suppression by authorities and inferiority by undergoing cosmetic surgeries as a kind of performance art. I will look into their backgrounds, works, attitude to body image and self-determination, focusing on cosmetic surgery. Since both 3 artists are females, and the voice in society to females body image is much bigger, this essay will focus on females as well.

CHAPTER 1

BEAUTY, BODY IMAGE AND COSMETIC SURGERY

The ‘beauty’ mentioned here is only about physical attractiveness, the degree to which a person’s physical features are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. People all over the world with different cultural, historical, social and political backgrounds, coincidental constantly decorate themselves and even modify their bodies to achieve making up significant attraction(s) to set up self-image and social status. The beauty standards are different in different society and change from time to time, and body modification is a non-stop trend in human history.

The evidence that people have tried a lot of methods to improve them at all costs with a long long history are easily brought to light. We still can find little descendants of traditional body modification in isolated villages, there are practices we are hard to imagined nowadays. For examples, Mursi women in Ethiopia wear lip plates inserted into the a pierced hole in lip(s); Kayan women in Thailand wear neck rings to extend their neck lengths visually by deforming their clavicles; Chinese women from Song to Qing Dynasty applied tight binding to feet to modify the shapes so as to fit into 3-inch shoes to show they’re from a rich family, a few old ladies are still practicing this and cannot walk properly; European women wears corsets to tolerate extreme waist constriction and eventually reduce their natural waist, which deformed and harmed their organs inside; and on and on in order to meet the beauty standard among their society and make a better leverage to find a prominent husband.

According to ISAPS latest global statistics (1), in 2016 particularly, there are over 10 million cosmetic surgical procedures have been undergone globally, 35% increased in 6 years*. That's to say, about 1.4 times per person have been gone under the knife just in 2016**. The most popular surgical procedures last year is liposuction, over 1.45 million, which occupied 14% of worldwide total surgical procedures. We can see that people now are obsessed with slim figures. With the significant figures, there is no doubt that people are more and more willing to take medically unnecessary body modification, expensive monetary cost, highly possible health and mental risks, along with advanced medical technology.

In the past, marriage makes the sole reason for the existence of women, who become only accessories in the traditional marriage due to their financial subordination and spiritual subjugation in patriarchal society. Women at that time blindly followed the social norms to modify their bodies to fulfill the men's sexual fantasy. Thus feminists described beauty in terms of suffering and oppression. Even though feminism rises, the phenomenon is slightly liberating but still existed. Women go under knife in order to easily get in a romantic relationship and/or a promising career is heard from time to time. Not only men, women are objectified themselves too, and agree someone else to determine their appearance. The lost of autonomy encourage body modification practices.

Females being asked intentionally or unconsciously to meet a certain standards all the time. Primarily under mass media effect, general ideal beauty is wide-range spreading. And body image, “...emcompasses our view of how we look, satisfaction with how we look, and how we think others view our appearance” (Castle D J. & Phillips K A., 2002: ix) , is affected to a certain extent. In fact, many researchers have indicated that mass media is one of main reasons that mass media changed our body image. For an example largely accustomed to us, models or idols whom we are looking at in the commercial advertisements and different kinds of mass media (TV, magazines, Internet, etc.), their personal physical attractions affect our evaluation to beauty and then forming a standard. ‘I want to be as thin as the models in Victoria Secret's show’ or ‘I want to have Angelina Jolie’s luscious lips’, such wishes are heard all the time from surroundings. The mass media set up the beauty standards for us, and called it ‘fashion’.

Actually we are effortlessly influenced by surroundings, especially at our naive young age. For example, Barbie dolls are the most popular childhood company for girls. However, its unrealistic figure twisted many girl's perception to an ideal appearance and try to being a doll, i.e. Barbie Effect. Some are enthusiastic about being a ‘Human Barbie’, like Valeria Lukyanova, had surgeries and other means to have an identical Barbie appearance. It is kind of brainwashing. Playing with Barbie and being provided with ideal scenario, exerts a subtle influence on children's evaluation. It is a similar effect with norms and mass media.

Although some people originally do not care their appearance, they finally will do after repeatedly judgement about it. “When we look in the mirror our vision is distorted as we see a lifetime of criticisms reflected back at us… we become sufferers of an insidious ‘dis-ease’ called body panic” (Astrid L, 2003: 34) To ease such mental pain, some suppress the disappointments by make-ups, and some go extreme to change their appearance for good. Kathy Davis (1995) states that despite she disapproved plastic surgery which brings unnecessary pain to females, it helps to improve patients’ negative self esteem which positive impact cannot be neglected. Her surveys shown that people underwent plastic surgery are not aim for beauty, just for being normal, to meet the overall outlook standard. They felt ashamed of their ungainly appearance due to body panic. For example, obesity as mentioned below:

“A lot of women out there look and feel like that, made to fear their own excess, taken in by the cult of exercise, the great quest to be thin. The rhetoric used against obesity makes it sound far worse than alcohol or smoking, yet they can do you far more damage. I'm not painting disgusting, big women. I'm painting women who've been made to think they're big and disgusting, who imagine their thighs go on forever.” (Davies, H. 1994)

Based on above findings, to a large extent, people have cosmetic surgery because of external factors, authority suppression and common commitment. For example, the standards of size in different times are divergent. In Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), the fatter the more beautiful due to prosperous society, people fed themselves as much as possible to show off their wealth; Today, the slimmer the more beautiful due to tyranny of thin, people go on diet, do exercise, and even cut off the fat just in order to keep up with fashion. Since the majority in society concur one specific condition is perfect and adopt it as a norm, the rest will be forced to followed. In my own opinion, the main reason of cosmetic surgery is to maintain their social status and not being labelled as minority, not only to have a pleasing appearance.

*Exact world cosmetic surgical procedures: 10,417,370 in 2016; 6,735,640 in 2010 (1)

**Exact world population: 7,442,136 in 2016 (World Bank)

Chapter II

Jenny Saville and Obese Bodies

Jenny Saville is known as an English painter who created lots of large-scaled nude obese bodies paintings which body size against prevailing beauty standard to public (the tyranny of thin mentioned in last chapter). Obesity is worldwide social issue, and it is a serious problem especially in well-developed countries like U.K. and U.S.A. where she lived. Therefore, the phenomenon was easily discovered by Jenny and drawn her attention to overweight people. As she said in an interview:

She uses classical media and techniques, oil paintings, which mostly used to praise the ideal beauty like ‘The Birth of Venus’, on the contrary, to reveal the anti-traditional nasty body shape in front of people in huge paintings. Such huge size of paintings makes people unable to ignore and have to stare at the painterly exuberance of the flesh. Although she is not fat in person, some of her works are kind of her own reflection but in magnified way. (However, her works are not self-portrait, using her own face in creation just make herself more into the work, as she said. Therefore, her image in the works will be omitted.) Besides, her own perception and reclaiming the right to female conception of beauty are shown.

One of her early work, Propped (1992, Fig. 1), there is a nude obese woman on the prop looks like an object being displayed publicly, it strongly relating the general social attitude to female objectification. And the mirror words are scratched all over her is revealing that there are always comments on women no matter praise or criticism or neutral opinions. She is leaning her head back and her eyes are closed, shows she has no choice but faces the comments. Her gestures also exposed that she is scared and uncomfortable, her hands are crossed and scratching her tights hard, that strength makes her finger knuckles become white. Saville enlarged the hands and tights to draw the viewers’ attention and enhanced the drama of viewing the human body’s flesh and imperfections, as well as the insecurity of the women to her own body image. She showed females are living under males’ gaze and judgement a long time that losing their autonomy and self-determination. The huge painting seems are screaming to us and remind us the ownership of our body.

“Modern western culture emphasizes thinness, denigrates excess weight, and stigmatizes obese individuals, making it likely that obese people internalize these messages and feel badly about the physical presence that brands them. There is clear evidence that obesity is linked with poor body image, but not all obese persons suffer from this problem or are equally vulnerable. Risk factors identified thus far are degree of overweight, being female, and binge eating, with some evidence of risk increasing with early age of onset of obesity, race, and several additional factors.” (Schwartz, MB. & Brownell, KD. 2004)

She is extremely interested in the phenomenon of cosmetic surgery, a practice that is intended to “beautify” or “normalize” people according to a socially constructed myth of how a person should look. Plan (1993, Fig. 3) showing the lines drawn on an obese woman's body to designate where liposuction would be performed. She is no need to explain the meaning of the lines anymore since the high degree of popularity of cosmetic surgery nowadays, but she did when she first introduced the painting. She is surprised by the wide spreading speed of such practices. And she almost defined them as a new race: the plastic surgery race. Get back to the painting, different from Propped (1992, Fig. 1), the woman’s eyes are opened and stared at the viewer and she looks more confident. Maybe she knows that her body is about to be corrected to normal size, and her own body image is going to be positive too. However, her right hand is grabbing her left shoulder, which gesture shows that she is worrying about the surgeries and/or the results.

She moved to New York after her first shows in 1994, and spent a long time to observe the work of a cosmetic surgeon there, in the most popular cosmetic surgery city in the world, to enrich her artistic process and better understand the underlying implications of such practices. Then she created a series of photographs collaborated with a fashion photographer Glen Luchford, Closed Contact (2002, Fig. 3), to explores the naked female body and the stereotyped perceptions of its beauty.

In the photographs, she is nude in person lying onto a piece of large glass, squeezing her body in different ways to created distorted body images, have been taken underneath a piece of transparent perspex. The way she distorts her own body and squeezes the flappy parts, reflecting a gritty feeling about themselves from obese people, who are dying for getting away from the fat. The flesh pressuring on the glass enhance non-acceptance of that kind of oversize, makes the viewer tends to agree that obesity is not pleasing to the eye and the woman in the photo should go to have a liposuction. The painful facial expression, the powerful strength scratching the body and fingers are all poked into the body, shows the body panic mentioned in last chapter. Moreover, it also expresses the idea of being able to create beauty through a surgeon’s scalpel. Therefore, she mouldered and manipulated the unsatisfactory parts implies that she is able to take control her own body at will despite along with painful process.   

To sum up, I found her works are mainly about to awaken people to reflectively think what is ideal beauty and the reason why we need to reshape our body (the negative body image), not focusing on defining the beauty (she only shown us what is not beautiful). Her purpose is very clear that to draw people’s attention on the the issue of obesity. And use the exaggerated obese bodies to raise the question about the definition of beauty. All classical paintings in the museums are beautiful ladies. Her painting not only magnified the unpleasant part, also made it uncovered and being reveal whole body to the viewers. I think the size of canvas is a strategy to magnify the issue.

Fig.1   Jenny Saville, Propped, Oil on Canvas, 1992

Fig.2 Jenny Saville, Plan, 1993, Oil on canvas

Fig.3  Jenny Saville, Closed contact (set of 4), Photograph, 2002

Chapter III

Sheila Pree Bright and Barbie Dolls

Sheila Pree Bright is an award-winning fine-art American photographer. Plastic Bodies is one of her famous works, which is a series of digitally manipulated photographs and disposed by digitally merged with multi-ethnic women and Barbie dolls. In this series, she not only focusing on Barbie Effect that plays in girls, she used the artificial object, Barbie dolls, to show the impact that mass media effect along with commercialism makes conceptual or ‘mythological’ models become the determinant of our perception of reality. (Which theories are mentioned in Chapter 1.) The unrealistic figures of Barbie dolls make it a perfect tool for metaphor of fantasy of women's bodies.

Bright’s concern is correct. Some studies shows that high degree of Barbie doll ownership leads to increased thin ideal internalisation among young girls. (Rice, K. Prichard, I. Tiggemann, M. Slater, A. 2016) As a professional photographer and a ‘social cultural anthropologist’* , I believed she has witnessed the body panic people suffering from the American culture with well-developed mass media industry. She shared the idea with Huffington Post as below (Bahadur N. 2013):

‘American concepts of the “perfect female body” are clearly exemplified through commercialism, portraying “image as everything” and introducing trends that many spend hundreds of dollars to imitate. It is more common than ever that women are enlarging breasts with silicone, making short hair longer with synthetic hair weaves, covering natural nails with acrylic fill-ins, or perhaps replacing natural eyes with contacts. Even on magazine covers, graphic artists are airbrushing and manipulating photographs in software programs, making the image of a small waist and clear skin flawless. As a result, the female body becomes a replica of a doll, and the essence of natural beauty in popular American culture is replaced by fantasy.’

Therefore, she magnified the distinctions between fantasy and reality in Plastic Bodies. Let’s take a look in Untitled 2 (Fig.4), she digitally merged half face of a Barbie doll and a half face of a real human girl. It is easy to check the contrast between their characteristics out. Barbie doll has smaller face, bigger eyes, dramatic eyelashes, and its corners of mouth curve up which makes it always smiles, human girl quite the opposite. It simply shows that the difference and the human girl needs to modify a lot of features, i.e. undergoing cosmetic surgeries, if she wants to look like a doll. Furthermore, she turned the skin of the half Barbie doll face into real human skin. If we see closely, we can find pores and little crinkles instead of smooth plastic surface. This makes viewer relating it to the imperfection people usually have, reminds us that we are human beings in flesh can feel the pain, not those standardised mass-produced dolls can be shaped whatever we wanted. And we cannot be perfect in all ways. Go back the curving up corners of Barbie doll’s mouth, it reminds us one thing that a real human being have emotions, which makes us different from an object. Emotions divertisfy us and make us unique.

Untitled 8 (Fig. 5) merged the real human body into Barbie doll’s size, we can see the clavicles, crinkles and pores on the skin, not the smooth plastic shoulder in Untitled 2 (Fig.3). And the viewer will further discover that a real person is impossible have as narrow waist as a life sized Barbie does. According to Rehabs.com (2012), Barbie’s waist is 16 inches and a U.S. average woman’s is around 32 to 34 inches. ‘With a 16 inch waist (smaller than her head), Barbie only has room for half a liver and a few inches of intestine.’ Obviously a normal human being needs a twice size room for the rest of organs for living. Therefore, we can see how big the distinctions between fantasy and real, and shows this fantasy is not a ideal model we should follow and it is ridiculous if we do.

Although she used photograph as a media for this artwork is undoubtedly logical since she is a photographer, there is one more meaning to me actually. Photograph is not drawing or painting, without digital modification, it generally reveals the most reality to people. Plastic Bodies brings the message that the absurdity blindly turning fantasy to reality out simply and directly. But through photograph, it seems leads the viewers roaming about the reality and the illusion. At the same, it asks the viewers precisely what is the perfect female body and the answer is obviously not the fantasy reflected on the Barbie doll. It is a request to free and reclaim the female bodies.

To sum up, her attitude to body modification is very clear through her work. The diversity of the identity should be promoted due to increasingly global community. Western commercialism, standardisation, mass media effect, etc, which impact is making it difficult for women with different backgrounds and biological characteristics to achieve self-definition with regards to their own ideas of beauty. We should promote the essence of the natural beauty, instead of a replica of specific beauty standard like a doll.

*In the art world, she is described as a ‘social cultural anthropologist’ portraying large-scale works that combine a wide-range of contemporary culture.

Fig. 4. Sheila Pree Bright, Plastic Bodies - Untitled 2, Digitally Manipulated Photograph, 2003

Fig. 5. Sheila Pree Bright, Plastic Bodies - Untitled 8, Digitally Manipulated Photograph, 2003

Chapter IV

ORLAN and Carnal Art

ORLAN defined carnal art as self-portrait in the classical sense but made by means of today’s technology (cosmetic surgery), which is not about the surgical pain/ self-mutilation (since there is morphine) or the surgery results/ the changes of the appearance. The reason why she became obsessed with carnal art is experience of an emergency surgery, She was almost died because of ectopic pregnancy. It is the moment she found there is no pain during the surgery due to morphine.

She filmed and broadcast a series of cosmetic surgery performance from early to mid 1990’s in Paris and New York, with help from a team of professional surgeons. In the 4th surgery-performance (Fig. 6), she re-designed the operation room and filled with decorations like posters, fruit and so on. She called the operation room as “the theatre of operation”, and even decorated it. It is obviously she wanted the whole surgery procedure become the main performance, just like an opera taking place in a theatre, as her intention. The whole surgeon team and dressed up in glitter clothes, just like the actors in the opera, everyone in the room were part of the performance. Which costumes were designed by famous fashion designers like Paco Rabanne and Issey Miyake. She valued each details as there was an opera to be going on. During the performance, ORLAN insisted to stay awake, smile and stare at camera the whole time. Meanwhile she watched her body cut open, her entrails were flipping, cutting and sewing by surgeons. She successfully turned the surgical procedures into a performance art. Believed that the reason it called the Successful Surgery.

Fig. 7 is shows ORLAN herself is undergoing the 7th surgery-performance, Omnipresence (1993), the surgeon is putting tools into her body, and her blood all over the surgeon’s gloves. She is calm, smiling and stared at the camera as usual. The action of the surgeon is highly contrast to ORLAN’s facial expression. To those who did not know her intention, it is a creepy scenario. On the other side, we can see that having the surgery is totally at her own will, and she is very happy and satisfied about it. As she said, “Beauty is the product of the dominant ideology. (Thus when ideology changes, the ideal body follows.)” (Priscilla, 2013)

She emerged with two little implants in the surgery-performance, which usually used to enhance cheekbones, on either side of her forehead. Hostile critics called them "demon horns", but they are more like nascent anglittertlers. She does not plan to remove them and has carried them for over a decade. And she decorate with glitters or colors. We can see that she treated herself as canvas, and shows the work along with her. The "demon horns" becomes her a significant mark. So, she was successfully created a new identity by body modification. Moreover, by the name of “demon horns", such implants placement are against the beauty standard of public. But ORLAN embraced this kind of appearance, and she recognized this is her own beauty.

“Was she trying make herself more beautiful? "No, my goal was to be different, strong; to sculpt my own body to reinvent the self. It's all about being different and creating a clash with society because of that. I tried to use surgery not to better myself or become a younger version of myself, but to work on the concept of image and surgery the other way around. I was the first artist to do it," she says, proudly.” (Stuart Jeffries, 2009)

“The whole point is to be against the idea of social pressure put on a woman’s body,” as she said, to be free and reclaim the control of her own. In my point of view, as most feminists agreed, ORLAN’s surgical performance reclaims the control of female body. She was both an observer and being observed during her performance. She believed surgically changing her body could be a powerful work of art. In Fig.5, she is holding a cross during the surgery, was she challenge against religion through it? No, her point is no party in the world can change her mind to do anything onto her own body. She was sending that powerful message.

Although she cannot doing carnal art by surgery-performance due to health issue, she did cibachrome printing. By combining her own image with those of Pre-Columbian and African icons representing the standards of ideal beauty from non-Western cultures, she created Refiguration Self Hybridation Pre-Columbian And African Series. In these photographs and sculptures, she continues to create artworks that established new identities. The works contain evidence of past tribal rites and rituals associated with beautification that, in conjunction with her own modifications via cosmetic surgery. The treatment of her own image is enhanced by the introduction of issues of “self” and “other,” adding to the layering of the artwork. Fig. 8 (1998) is one of works from the series. We can find her favourite significant implants put inside her forehead in last surgery-performance are not be neglected. This ‘carnal art’ practiced in different kind of media still reflecting she is in disagreement with the beauty standard and attempt to create her own beauty.

To sum up, ORLAN’s ‘carnal art’ is never about followed the beauty standard, she was all for pleasure and sensuality, not for endurance and suffering. To some people, it is hard to understand. As I mentioned at the beginning, all surgeries have inherent risks. The brave that she spoke loudly through her own body is impressive. Her intention was not against the cosmetic surgery and promote it. Her works are against the standards of beauty and nature. By this motion, it is more easily understood why she adopted this kind of extreme body modification as her media. She sent message by distorting and deformed her own body. Since which actions would destroy the nature of human body, she was not as the same person as born, just like the day she renamed herself ORLAN. And she got an chance to define her own beauty.

g. 6. ORLAN, 4th Surgery-Performance: Successful Surgery, Photograph, 1991

Fig. 7. ORLAN, 7th Surgery Performance: Omnipresence, Photograph, 1993

Fig. 8. ORLAN, Refiguration / Self-Hybridization Pre-Columbian Nº15, Cibachrome, 1998

CONCLUSION

People who underwent cosmetic surgeries consider their own bodies as a form of language. What a outlook reveals in front of others is a part of clues of message(s) that what kind of person you are sending out, exactly the moment when a perception to you formed by others at the first sight. That is the reason why people care so much about their appearance. Since we all are social animals (Aronson, E. 2004), we cannot escaped from the social norms unless we live alone. I learnt from the research and the findings that, self-determination is the key to our action. The way we evaluating things helps us making decisions. If we are afraid that we are not the majority and being isolated, we will take actions to avoid being minority. If we do not care the regulations, we will take actions at our preference.

The 3 female artists have same message that females should be no longer being judged their appearance and they should not listen to others’ opinions. And we should not feel bad about ourselves and try to meet others’ standards. Nowadays different kinds of information throughout the world much more conveniently faster, and the minority in society are being more respect, individual characters are strongly encouraged, which meet their common advocate that following the standards is that important anymore. In my own opinion, it is becoming less and less impact but not gone yet since the world is not that progressive. However, I believed the prejudices based on someone’s appearance will be dispelled soon under the effort of feminist movement.

Other than Saville and Bright, ORLAN is not only raised the question and asked people reflectly think about the definition of beauty, she took a few more steps to reclaim the bodies. She threw away people’s prejudices, and actually took back the ownership of her own body. Proceeded body modification at her own will and it was unrelated to being beautiful. I agreed with her point that everyone has his/her own genetic characters and makes us unique, no matter we like it or not. If we cannot embrace the characters, the body is ourselves, we can make the decision to modify it as we wanted, not based on others’ influence.

To conclude, Saville and Bright feel negative to body modification but ORLAN feels positive. The artworks of former 2 artists almost shouted in front of people that the phenomenon of cosmetic surgery is abnormal, and the beauty should not be standardised. But the latter one feels positive because she is not regarding cosmetic surgery is a tool to follow public beauty standards, she used it to identify herself which motion is different. On the other hand, as for their artistic presentation, the artworks of Saville and Bright are much gentler than ORLAN’s. The former 2 artists stimulate viewers by plane, but the latter one by blood. However, both of them valued and promoted self-determination on their bodies.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig.1 Jenny Saville, Propped, 1992, oil canvas, 213x183cm

[Online] Available from: ttps://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/jenny_saville_10.htm

Fig.2 Jenny Saville, Plan, 1993, Oil on canvas

[Online] Available from: http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/jenny_saville_4.htm

Fig.3 Jenny Saville, Closed contact (set of 4), 2002, cibachromes, mntd, 39.4x27.9cm

[Online] Available from: http://www.artnet.com/artists/jenny-saville/closed-contact-set-of-4-Xkr9u5tb5cbtsoK-1PMKpQ2

Fig.4 Sheila Pree Bright, Plastic Bodies - Untitled 2, 2003, digitally manipulated photograph

[Online] Available from: https://www.sheilapreebright.com/gallery

Fig.5 Sheila Pree Bright, Plastic Bodies - Untitled 8, 2003, digitally manipulated photograph

[Online] Available from: https://www.sheilapreebright.com/gallery

Fig.6 ORLAN, 4th Surgery-Performance: Successful Surgery, 1991, Photograph

[Online] Available from: http://www.orlan.eu/works/performance-2/nggallery/page/3

Fig.7 ORLAN, 7th Surgery Performance: Omnipresence, 1993, Photograph

[Online] Available from: http://www.orlan.eu/works/performance-2/nggallery/page/3

Fig.8 ORLAN, Refiguration / Self-Hybridization Pre-Columbian Nº15, 1998, ibachrome

[Online] Available from: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/orlan-refiguration-slash-self-hybridization-pre-columbian-no15

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20. The Things About (2 Nov 2016) Perfect Bodies - The Thing About… Jenny Savile [Online] Available from: https://youtu.be/ocB_KcLFvZk

21. Channel 4 News (8 May 2016) Artist Jenny Saville: Why Human Bodies Fascinate [Online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgXNp8ToVHk&feature=share

22. John Rolfe Films for MAO (19 September 2012) Jenny Saville at Modern Art Oxford (23.06.2012 — 16.09.2012) [Online] Available from: https://vimeo.com/49767964

23. Bahadur N. (22 November 2013) ‘Plastic Bodies’ Series By Sheila Pree Bright Will Make You Think Differently About Beauty [Online] Available from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/22/plastic-bodies-sheila-pree-bright-beauty-identity_n_4324403.html

24. Golgowski N. (13 April 2013) Bones so frail it would be impossible to walk and room for only half a liver: Shocking research reveals what life would be like if a REAL woman had Barbie's body [Online]. Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2308658/How-Barbies-body-size-look-real-life-Walking-fours-missing-half-liver-inches-intestine.html

25. Rehabs.com (2012) Dying for Barbie: Eating Disorders in Pursuit of the Impossible [Online] Available from: https://www.rehabs.com/explore/dying-to-be-barbie/#.WlSD2np-Xmo

26. ORLAN http://www.orlan.eu/bibliography/carnal-art/

27. Leddy, S. (7 August 2017). At 70, Body Modification Artist ORLAN Is Still Reinventing Herself. [Online]. Available from: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-70-body-modification-artist-orlan-reinventing

28. Jeffries, S. (1 July 2009). ORLAN’s Art of Sex and Surgery. [Online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jul/01/orlan-performance-artist-carnal-art

29. Frank, P. (29 January 2013). ORLAN Talks Plastic Surgery, Beauty Standards And Giving Her Fat To Madonna (PHOTOS, INTERVIEW, NSFW). [Online]. Available from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/performance-artist-orlan-interview-beauty-surgery_n_2526077.html