The Mike Series at The Emporium in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

From May 3rd to June 22nd 2014   (Extended until August 24th) 

Solo Show by Clara Lang-Ezekiel

The Mike Series: Artist Statement

            What is Beauty? According to David Hume “Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.” In a world where cultures have shaped extremely precise guidelines for what beauty entails, and the media has propagated these impossible standards, there are few of us whose minds aren’t burdened by the idea that we will never reach the ideal our culture sets for us.

This series was created as a way of challenging our traditional understanding of beauty and its unattainability. The model used for all of these reduction screen-prints is the same bearded, hoody-wearing, Akron man, my dear friend and fellow artist Michael Rose. Through the use of wigs, makeup, and clothing Michael was transformed into a beautiful Geisha, a stunning Drag Queen, a blushing bride, etc. Fascinatingly, in the year and a half since this series was completed, almost everyone who has seen it has assumed the model to be female. One of the most common reactions from those who discovered the identity of the model has been something along the lines of: “tell Mike he’s a beautiful lady.” This raises the question: If Mike can be a gorgeous woman (by several different cultural standards), why can’t any woman make herself beautiful as well? This is not to say that one should strive to conform to what our society claims is beauty, but rather to address how easily one’s appearance can be manipulated.

Beauty is a performance. Women all over the world put on their costume and makeup every morning as if to perform their beauty on a stage, and yet most continue to feel inadequate compared to the standards they are held against. If the performance of beauty continues to be such a burden for women, perhaps it is time to start performing talent, intelligence, or wit instead and derive our self worth from something that isn’t as easy to fake as beauty.