Maria Spector
The works of gouache on paper from my Shadow of Girlhood Series are scary and intimate and seem to come so close to touching the truth of what it means to be a girl or a woman at this time and place in the world. Our culture idealizes a girl’s development from child to woman. Her potential womanhood is anticipated and obsessed over. We recoil from cases of abduction like Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart, yet as a society we are complicit in creating a popular culture that has made a girl's development both sexy and violent. In the 1930’s, Darla Hood from the Our Gang series sang "I’m in the Mood for Love" while in the 1980’s Brooke Shields asked: “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Brooke Shields was 14 years old; Darla was 5. The girl that is not yet a woman is desired and anticipated. Today, we have Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan who came to fame as sexualized children and have now fallen into the role of idealized "bad girls" who serve the desires and needs of our society.
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The Shadow of Girlhood: Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella Gouache on paper 7"x20" 2011
The Shadow of Girlhood: Little Miss Muffet and the Birds Gouache on paper 7"x26" 2013
The Shadow of Girlhood: There's No Place Like Home Gouache on paper 7"x30" 2012
The Shadow of Girlhood: Strangling, Shooting, Raping, Pulling Hair and Stabbing Gouache on paper 7"x20" 2011
detail
The Shadow of Girlhood: Barbie Gouache on paper 7"x41" 2012