Tense: Balanced Yoga Ball Crunch (oil sketch) Painting

In my work, I see the gym as a place where everyday antics and behaviors are amplified in a stage-like environment where there is a hyperawareness of our bodies in a public space. Exploring the politics of looking through both male and female gazes, I’m interested in exemplifying the strangeness of the body, and the peculiarity of certain gym exercises and the awkward, compromising, sometimes sexual positions they put people in. My works hinge on the contradiction that I am an active participant of #gymlife, while also questioning its variables. By telling gym stories through serious yet comically empathetic visual narratives, my work is meant to bring up conversation about gender issues, body politics and trends, competition, the machinic-like work we do, and the propaganda of progress in other spheres of our lives.