WK 14: Artist Conversation

Artist: Micol Hebron

Exhibition: Digital Pasty/Gender Equity initiative

Media: Photography, Studio Work

Gallery: N/A

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unicornkiller1

Website: http://micolhebron.com/

The person or I should say the artist I chose to interview was Micol Hebron who is a Feminist, a leader in a movement, and an artist who is fighting to seek equality for women in all different aspects in life especially in the social media aspect of things. She is an Associate Professor of Art at Chapman University where she is also the founder/director of The Situation Room resource space for the creative community. Hebron has also served on advisory boards at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Birch Creek Ranch Residency (Utah), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and UCLA. Herbon is also a Feminist who has demonstrated strategies of consciousness-raising, collaboration, generosity, play, and participation to support and further feminist dialogues in art and as well as life. Hebron’s main goal as of right now is fighting for equality for women through social media because they can not post a nude picture of their boobs(nipples) without being censored, compared to a male who can have his shirt off and can show off his nipples.

The picture that I chose to look at from her gallery on Instagram was this picture of her that had some weird colors to it, weird illusions, and herself being naked with black stars being placed on her breast to not get the picture taken down. The picture when you first look at it is her standing up with her arms out while she stares down at her body or at the ground no once you see the first image of her you start to see more of her. The picture has this illusion of the same picture of her getting bigger and bigger until her photo can not fit the screen as I believe this is her way of saying that women are powerful and can be an illusion. The other illusion to this photo is behind the pictures of her as there is a checker color scheme in the background of the picture which makes the picture look like it has a wave going through it. I also want to mention is that she is holding nipples as it looks like she has pulled them off from her breast and is holding them to the viewer to see them.

What the picture is trying to say is unclear for me but from what I can put together is that even though social media is censoring her because she can not show her nipples she is going to find other ways to show them to the viewer. The only reason why I think this is because she is holding her nipples in her hand so it is kind of like a jab at social media saying that I still showed my nipples but not in the way that you can censor out. Since this picture is about showing her nipples even though you can not show them it goes with her theme that women are being held back and being body shamed for what they have. The other meaning I got from this picture is the fact that women are powerful since it shows herself getting bigger and bigger which shows me and the viewer that women are more powerful than men think or what the world thinks. Overall this picture to me is about saying that she was able to post her nipples on social media but by doing it in a new creative way than just posting them online and getting it censored. 

In my opinion, I liked her idea, and I liked all her pictures about it as she is finding creative ways to post her body on social media without being censored nor taken down which is a big success story if you are able to do it. The picture itself is pretty cool and unique as you really do not see pictures like that as often plus the way she made it look made it seem like it was an illusion that was playing with your eyes. The illusion itself in this picture is cool and I think that is why I choose it as it made the picture look interesting and eye-grabbing to me at least plus the fact that she kind of said “F U” to social media was funny. The message, in the end, is that women should not be blocked nor censored on social media because of their body or their nipples. Overall this picture and her idea is something I liked to learn about especially when she was talking about her ideas over our zoom lecture which was pretty interesting, very informative, and very educational on what it means to stand up and fight for what you want.