Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My mind is changing all the time. I can't live in a space that has a fixed aesthetic. I just need a blank slate when I come home.
We have this weird beauty standard where women, like, shouldn't grow: what we think is feminine is often what is also pre-pubescent.
With social media and all the new technology, there's just more interfaces around and reminders to constantly be working on our body.
There's definitely a romanticism of youth, like, everywhere. Specifically with women, they kind of only exist between the age of 15 to 25.
I came to New York with no money and just one suitcase. I had my family's emotional support, but they weren't able to help me financially.
Girls are taught to be so afraid to take up any "space," even with their own bodies, and hair is a part of that. I'm glad to not be a part of that!
I started out taking photos of my friends on, like, disposable cameras, and I documented my younger sister and her friends all through high school.
The selfie is a powerful tool, but it can also be dangerous, and I am fascinated with the process of it because there is a level of self-monitoring.
I approach beauty the same way I approach clothing - I think people should do whatever to themselves to make them feel more comfortable in their skin.
It's one thing when you are photographing others, but when you are exposing yourself and your insecurities, that's the biggest risk. That's always scary.
I'm used to being told by society that I must regulate my body to fit the norm. I'm used to the fact that images of unaltered women are seen as unacceptable.
I think anytime you can share images that make young women feel a sense of belonging when they might not be feeling their best or their strongest is so cool.
We live in such an image-heavy world that not seeing yourself in that landscape can really make it tough to feel human, to feel like you are part of the world.
I post all the time anyway. It's part of who I am. There's me IRL. There's me URL. That's just my life. Plus, I love it. It's amazing to connect with so many people.
Social media has been such a big important thing for young artists and minorities because it's a community to get noticed. It's having an audience that was never there before.
The feminist movement is way bigger than the word. I don't police people on what they call themselves, but equality and a general sense of togetherness are really important to me.
The selfie is revolutionary to me. It is, I think, the only point in history where masses of young girls and women have been able to control, create, and publish images of themselves.
Everyone has a mirror face that's so different from their natural face. And I think it's interesting, seeing the way people want to be viewed when they're putting themselves together.
I think it's important for not just me but women of color, trans women, and people who are marginalized to be telling stories of themselves. It's important for us to be behind the lens.
If your story is being told by someone who doesn't really know it, it's not going to come out accurate. A lot of it has to do with context. Whoever's behind the camera or pen or whatever.
I did two years at art school in criticism and curatorial practice, but I dropped out because I was frustrated that there was this hierarchy where I couldn't do anything or ask questions.
You don't have to try to get a job and go through set steps before you start a career or start your life. That's what I want young girls to know - you can do anything you want. Just start.
When I was growing up, my parents would apologize when we didn't have enough money for something. I'd always tell them that it was O.K. and that I had learned to work hard because of them.
I was very depressed at a young age and felt like I didn't have agency towards that. Being 'female' meant I couldn't be that - I couldn't be angry, loud, sullen. Being sad meant I was weak.
Even if I'm not so into the specific celebrities who are sharing images of themselves looking "bad," I think it's an amazing contribution to the conversations about beauty that we have online.
A thing that I'm always worried about doing is putting an image of myself on my Instagram or somewhere else that looks perfect, because that's not who I am, and that's not what I want to preach.
I'm used to seeing women being degraded, slut shamed, harassed for what they look like. Even the most powerful women in the world are measured by their appearance and constantly ridiculed for it.
My mom had been a script supervisor in Hungary, but you can't just jump into that in Canada without knowing any English. She worked retail jobs and raised my sister and me while learning English.
I don't know what I would've done without it. I really struggled in school with reading and writing. Art was my refuge - my way of speaking, of dealing with my own issues and connecting with the world.
With any medium you are working in, technical skills obviously help, but your mind is what you really need to expand. That is how you create work. That's the role of the artist - to change the way you view things.
It's so rare to see a woman lose control and also gain it back. Women are always told, 'Oh, be in control of your feelings,' and a woman is never allowed to express her anger without being demonised as being PMS-y.
Women's emotions are constantly labeled. Any slight deviation from 'pleasantness,' and we are labeled as hysterical. When we are angry, sad, depressed, or manic, we are immediately seen as unfeminine or ugly or weak.
I keep this Hungarian wooden candlestick on the top of my refrigerator along with all my other candles. It's big and ugly, especially next to all my pretty candles, and it doesn't really make sense to have in my apartment.
When I was 16, I created this online platform for female artists. I messaged women who I loved; that's how I got work and connected with people. You don't need to plead for entry into a system that doesn't want you anyway.
We work to create a new wave of feminism that is more inclusive. I want others to feel equal. It's so great to see women in positions of power, which is why other artists, such as Marilyn Minter, are so inspirational to me.
I think being collaborative is definitely more natural for people who are minorities in any sense - so people who aren't, like, white male artists - because we don't have the privilege to create art and work alone, usually.
As much as I preach self-love, it's so hard for me to love myself. It's really hard, and it's just about building a good network of people and, in this case, a good network of artists. Trying to live your ideals as best as you can.
I didn't see spaces where female artists could exist and exhibit their work. So I created a platform for this - one that allowed our works to be seen, but to also weave a community of women that could lean on and work with one another.
I consider myself endlessly lucky to have access to the Internet and technology. Through it, I've found myself and have been able to join a new discourse of females, young and old, who strive to change the way we look and treat ourselves.
I'm very lucky that I'm not a photographer for hire - people hire me for me. I go into every commercial work with an art focus, with that lens; every brand I've worked for just lets me do whatever I want to do. I have full creative freedom.
You don't have to wait for anyone's approval to do things. You don't have to try to get a job and go through set steps before you start a career or start your life. That's what I want young girls to know - you can do anything you want. Just start.
I always had this feeling, what I wanted to do. I was trying to work out myself, my frustrations, my body. I couldn't really pinpoint. I started taking photos of my sister and her friends. I was 15, exploring what it meant to be a 15-year-old girl.
From the beginning of puberty, I did really badly in school. I was super dyslexic; I was in special ed. I had a hard time reading and writing, so I thought that my self worth was in my looks, how I presented myself, and how other people perceived me.
What's cool is when people send me messages or tag me in their photos, which definitely happens more after a project comes out. The best part, I think, is that the DMs and tags are always from young girls, and reaching them is the most important thing for me.
I really wanted to feel strong, I wanted my subjects to feel strong, but I didn't know how to do that. It's really hard for, I guess, every woman to not internalize misogyny. I just learned as I went on how to best capture my subjects without objectifying them.
People are always like, 'Did you purposely do something to make people uncomfortable?' And I say the reason why it's uncomfortable is because it's either something that we can't talk about or aren't supposed to talk about, and they're images that aren't ever seen.
With feminism social media just opened up its boundaries even more. Now all these different tribes of women can connect with each other, and also find each other if they're not living in the same city, or even if they are but they're not friends with the same people!
Curating, in the modern sense, is something I gravitate to. Taking different ideas from a bunch of different places and putting them into one place or space, a story that makes sense or a new idea. Everything is remixed and taken from other things to make something new.
I'm thin and white and blond, but I'm not an airbrushed, perfect thing. I have stretch marks all over. I have cellulite; I have acne. To me, it feels like you can't really be what you can't see, and so if you don't see those things, then you don't feel like you're valid.
I think the gender norms of emotion are horrendous. Being masculine means showing zero emotions, but having the choice to be angry or depressed. Being female means you are one dimensional - if you show more than that, you are a psycho, hysterical, or historically, a witch.