Kylee Isom: HOME/BODY

Artist Statement

HOME/BODY is a collection of black and white self-portraits made with a large-format 4x5 film camera. This work navigates the tangled notions of body and femininity, in relation to the domestic sphere. Utilizing shapewear, textiles, and iconographic symbols of femininity as a vessel for dialogue within the confines of the home space, this body of work looks critically at historical and present-day perceptions of gender roles, idealized beauty, and womanhood. The performative act of abstracting, distorting, or stripping away the body by subverting the function of these materials works to undermine oppressive systems of misrepresentation, while alluding to the fallacy and constructed nature of the photograph. This is a body of work which questions the way in which womanhood is tethered to domesticity and the way in which this tether serves as an obstacle to the fabrication of identity. HOME/BODY interrogates the dynamic relationship between beauty, body, and femininity and how this relationship has been sculpted and preserved throughout history.

2021 VADS - People's Choice Voting

About the Project 

• Title of Work: HOME/BODY
• Medium: Four 17 x 22 inches framed archival prints
• Student's Name: Kylee Isom
• Major: Art
• Anticipated Graduation Date: May 2023
• Hometown: West Plains, Missouri
• Student's Mentor: Joe Johnson
• Mentor's Department: School of Visual Studies
• Art Project ID: Photography