Cat Fight Print

“Cat Fight”🩷 colored pencil and glitter gel pen on pink paper💅😽 This drawing is a part of my Envy Series, which explores insecurity, self perception, homoeroticism, competition and toxic friendship between women. Hair, nails, glitter, jewelry, and other signifiers of femininity become symbols of beauty, betrayal, envy, and emotional entanglement in my work. So many misogynistic tropes revolve around women competing with and hating each other over beauty. Think Snow White or Death Becomes Her. These stories paint women as shallow and vapid, while ignoring that patriarchy teaches women that beauty is our greatest sources of power. Of course that pressure finds its way into our relationships. Female friendships can also be incredibly emotionally intimate. That closeness creates sacred bonds, but it also means someone who knows you deeply knows exactly how to hurt you. At the same time, women are taught to be polite, agreeable, and never “hysterical,” allowing resentment to manifest through passive aggression, sugarcoating, scorekeeping, and backstabbing. In Cat Fight, I play with these stereotypes while taking the emotions behind them seriously. The figures embrace in a way that blurs fighting and intimacy, while scratches and tally marks suggest keeping score. Green, the envy color, contraste a hyper-feminine pink void. This series has also made me reflect on my own relationships. Sometimes you’re the bad guy, sometimes you’re the victim, and sometimes you’re both. Growing up means learning to recognize those patterns, work on yourself, and choose better people to surround yourself with. I’m fascinated by the psychological states that make us love, resent, compete with, and hurt the people closest to us. I’ve seen a lot of conversations about envy between women that are unnuanced and paint it as a shameful emotion you should never feel. This series hopes to make you think about it, rather than demonize it. By placing myself as both figures, I relinquish blame within the dynamic.