Sarah Fox: Shed

San Antonio, Texas-based artist Sarah Fox creates alternative realities and dreamscapes. The work in Shed represents a shift in her created world. This body of work is focused on pleasure as a mode of resistance. Radical self-acceptance, sensual movement, and self-care are all present and add a layer of healing to the universe in which these characters exist.

The title, Shed, reveals layers of meaning and association — honing creative energy and, most importantly, transformation, just to hint at a couple of ways the word resonates.

From Sarah:

“This current body of work started when I saw a Nan Goldin piece, Siobhan, in the shower. It is a photo from 1991 that she took of her friend and lover. In it, Siobhan has her arms raised, bare-breasted after a shower. She looks powerful, gentle, and without shame. Her gesture and presence made me think of the images of the Minoan Snake Goddess. A small figure, bare-breasted with arms raised overhead, holding two wrangling snakes. She has always been a favorite of mine, the delicate, coiling power she possessed. I wanted to create a new character that embodied the energy present in both of these representations of women. The character that emerged is a sort of sea serpent woman.

I look at and research folklore, religion, movies, popular culture, erotic art, and literature to find examples of women that are loud. When a body is too strange, too sexual, not functioning the way it ‘should,’too beautiful, too powerful-especially when that body presents itself as feminine—it was/is often labeled monstrous. Witches, sirens, fairies, harpies, banshees, and monsters are all labels that have been attached to these people. This manipulation is seen clearly in the way contemporary religions took older goddess figures and transformed them. When they were not absorbed and converted into virgins (The Virgin of Guadalupe), they were demonized and portrayed as gateways to evil (Lilith).”