The women in Sally Nixon’s illustrations don’t know that we can see them. They’re not posing, smiling, or doing anything all that interesting, and this is what makes Nixon’s works fascinating. Women live in a world in which our appearance is constantly evaluated—unless we’re utterly alone, we rarely have the privilege of not having our physical presentation judged. Seeing women in art who aren’t being watched and aren’t being assessed, who aren’t sucking in their stomachs, arching their backs, or dewily parting their lips, is wonderful, refreshing, and deeply relatable.
“The women I draw come from my imagination for the most part, however, each of them, in one way or another, is a reflection of my personality,” Nixon tells The Creators Project. “They don’t have perfect bodies or perfect habits and that makes them relatable. The scenes I create around them are everyday places: a bathroom, a restaurant, a messy bedroom. However my goal with each drawing is to elevate the seemingly mundane to something special and worthy of being viewed.”
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To learn more about Sally Nixon’s work, click here.
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