Barbie Dysmorphia
Barbie Dysmorphia is a personal body of work, an articulation of my own observations, experiences, and negotiations with beauty, gender, and the body. Through these framed works, I examine discomfort, contradiction, and autonomy, inviting viewers to form their own interpretations rather than prescribing a singular meaning.
About the Collection
Barbie Dysmorphia is a body of work comprising seven new artworks created from real female tarantula specimens, presented as framed wall pieces.
The collection examines the pressures I have experienced as a woman navigating culturally imposed ideals of beauty, ideals epitomised by the Barbie doll, whose body represents a standard that is both anatomically impossible and psychologically damaging. This work is not intended to speak on behalf of others, but rather to articulate my own lived experience and personal relationship with these expectations.
The use of spiders is central to this exploration. Despite their ecological importance and biological complexity, spiders are widely regarded as ugly, feared, or repellent, judgements rooted in cultural perception rather than truth. This resonates with my experience of how women’s bodies are assessed, controlled, and devalued when they fail to conform to accepted norms of attractiveness.
In contrast to human social hierarchies, female spiders are larger, stronger, and dominant; in many species, females consume the male after mating. This biological reality stands in sharp opposition to the expectation that femininity should be passive, restrained, or visually pleasing.
All works in the collection are constructed from real female tarantula specimens. In most pieces, some of the legs are painted 'Barbie Pink' while the body remains otherwise unaltered, allowing minimal intervention to emphasise the physical presence of the specimen.
I have predominantly used 'Barbie' pink, a colour culturally assigned to girls and femininity, as both a visual shorthand and a point of critique. This choice is informed not only by the colour’s long-standing association with idealised girlhood, but also by its recent cultural saturation following the release of the Barbie movie, during which the aesthetic of Barbie appeared to momentarily dominate global visual culture. For me, this omnipresence amplified the inescapability of the ideals the colour represents, reinforcing the tension between celebration, nostalgia, and pressure.
The Editions
Barbie Dysmorphia
The titular piece, Barbie Dysmorphia, reflects the internalised psychological impact of repeatedly encountering idealised representations of the female body.
In this work, the spiders’ legs are arranged to form the iconic Barbie logo from the 1980s, the era when I grew up and first felt the pressures and distortions that Barbie imposed on my sense of self.
By referencing this specific version of the logo, the piece simultaneously critiques the brand’s long-standing influence on femininity and situates the work within my own lived experience.
Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice
< -------------------- 270 cm -------------------- >
This piece, comprised of two large (270cm wide) framed editions references the nursery rhyme “Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice,” a phrase that has long shaped ideas of how girls are expected to behave. These works address how femininity is conditioned toward sweetness, compliance, and aesthetic restraint.
Spider Woman
Spider Woman engages with gendered visual language, referencing both the superhero and the universally recognised female restroom sign.
The simplified silhouette, almost always depicted in a dress, reveals how womanhood is reduced to a narrow, standardised symbol even within everyday public space.
"Shave your Fucking Legs"
Shave Your Fucking Legs addresses the expectation that women remove natural body hair in order to be considered acceptable.
Unlike other works in the collection, this piece uses no paint at all. By refusing aesthetic intervention, the natural legs of the spider are allowed to “speak” for themselves, asserting presence without modification.
This material decision is deeply personal. As the artist, now middle-aged, I have performed the ritual of shaving my legs almost every week since adolescence, often without questioning why. Over time, the act has felt less like a choice and more like an unspoken obligation, something done to avoid judgement rather than for oneself.
The title references a statement made by Adele in an interview with Vanity Fair where she said
"I'll have no man telling me to shave my fucking legs. Shave yours."
It also gestures toward public moments of resistance, such as Lady Gaga’s use of exaggerated body hair in performance and the global media response to Julia Roberts attending a film premiere without shaving her underarms. These reactions reveal how deeply entrenched and normalised the policing of women’s bodies remains.
Feminine & Feminine II
Feminine I and Feminine II explore how gender is culturally coded and visually enforced.
Feminine I features pink-painted legs, referencing the arbitrary yet deeply ingrained association of pink with femininity.
Feminine II adopts blue, traditionally assigned to masculinity. In this work, the dots of the letter “i” are formed from small male blue butterfly specimens. This choice draws attention to a biological inversion: while female spiders are larger and more powerful, male butterflies are often smaller and “deemed” more visually beautiful.
The work reflects my questioning of why human gender expectations so often contradict the logic and diversity of the natural world.
While this work may intersect with broader critical readings, it is not intended as a manifesto or a universal statement. Barbie Dysmorphia is a personal body of work, an articulation of my own observations, experiences, and negotiations with beauty, gender, and the body. Through these framed works, I examine discomfort, contradiction, and autonomy, inviting viewers to form their own interpretations rather than prescribing a singular meaning.