Finally finished this piece about the toxic beauty standards imposed by my parents while growing up. Painting all those eyes felt both meditating and drove me insane.
I included some of the comments my family has made about my appearance over the years, some of which are contradicting, just to show how impossible it was to please their toxic beauty standards. To them, I was always too skinny and too fat at 115lb. And being 5'6 was too short.
My mom told me to get plastic surgery for my monolid eyes, because only double lidded eyes are considered beautiful by Chinese standards. She pointed to her friend's daughter, who did get plastic surgery for her entire face, and said how much better the girl looked, how I should be like that.
My dad commented on my flat chest, asking how come my mom has boobs while I don't. My stepmom pointed out the frown lines around my lips, saying I don't smile enough. My stepmom always bullied me to the point of crying (by calling my mom a whore and such), so she knows exactly why I don't smile enough. My stepdad said my personality is too horrible to get a normal job, so I would have to prostitute myself, but that I'm too ugly to get clients so I would starve. When I told my mom what he said, she told me to stop lying.
After a lot of therapy for my CPTSD, I can look back and realize that they were the ugly ones, in all sense of the word. But for so long I had such little self-esteem, I would avoid photos. At my first artist alley over a decade ago, fans of my art wanted photos with me but I was too ashamed of myself to accept. I've improved a lot and no longer fear being photographed. I still struggle with other aspects of my childhood abuse (a story for a different day), but with each passing year I feel like I'm regaining bits of myself.
A peek of the painting process, the full hours long videos will be DMed on my Patreon on Sep 5th
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