Ruth Fox On Making Body-Positive Art: ‘I Want My Art To Encourage The Beauty In The Alternative’

“We carry our bodies around our whole lives, yet we’ve carefully sculpted these damaging ideas about what constitutes ‘hot’ or ‘beautiful’ or ‘ideal’. I wanted to draw people who felt awkward, disappointed or ashamed about part of their physical appearance – and do so in a massive window of a gallery space, not only to encourage a sense of empowerment through self-instigated positions of vulnerability, but as a way of laughing (and staring) in the face of it all.

“When I first started making work, I didn’t just want it to be just about developing a concept and making a living. I wanted my work have purpose to it and move people, and at the same time, I started getting tired of how we perceive our physical identities and judge our own bodies in a way that can destroy or stroke our egos, based on the ‘beauty system’ – the fantasies executed by advertising, magazines and by us on social media. Many people have started to try and make these fantasies our realities, and I just think we’ve lost the plot! So I wanted to make work that encouraged a solution to this, particularly for women, and which offered different ways of looking at and seeing the body.

Image credit: Jez Smith

“In some areas of life, conformity or conventionality can be so damaging. I want my art to encourage the beauty in the alternative: that there is no other you, or me, out there.”