‘She is guilty of transgression is she desecrates that beauty with impure substances, rich foods, cheap lotions. What is beautiful about her body does not belong to her but to God. But what is ugly is hers alone, proof of her sin, worthy of any abuse. She is to touch her skin reverently, as the “beauty” of a smooth youthful face is God-given. But she may wring, beat and electrocute her woman’s thighs, the proof of her prodigal ways. This prevents women from fully inhabiting the body, keeping us waiting for an apotheosis that will never arrive. It is meant to keep us from being at ease in the flesh or in the present, those two erotically and politically dangerous places for a woman to be; mourning the past and fearing the future, pacified. – Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth (1991:129) Today I wanted to share two new self-portraits, taken in my grandmother’s bathroom in Malta. On my face is a silicone sauna mask from Korean eBay, and the blue pads on my body are from a device called ‘the slim-gym’ found in a car boot sale in Kilburn. I sometimes think about making work without bizarre beauty devices, but they just keep inventing them.

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