Painting number 9 of the Dirty Minded series: bruised knees!! I’d love to include experiences from women of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds as soon as possible. If you have an experience or idea you want to share for a painting I’d love to hear it!! Join my email list for early access to the originals and prints before the public release :) And thank you for all the support so far. The response to this series means the world to me 🫶 #dirtyminded #oilpainting #girlhood #malegaze #misogyny

This might be the most niche thing that I've painted so far in the Dojo-Minded series, which is exactly why I chose to paint it. Out of the thousands and thousands of requests I've received, only two people asked me to paint bruised knees. But more I thought about it, the more I realized that it actually touches on a lot of subjects that I've been wanting to explore. So far in the series, I've only painted things that have come to my mind and things that I've experienced. But this one actually didn't come from my mind, so I came from people in my comments pointing out that bruised knees can be sexualized because people assume that a girl has been on her knees for a sexual reason. And once I saw that, I understood immediately why it belonged in the series, because bruised knees come from so many completely innocent things. Sports, dancing, stretching, falling over, being clumsy, working out, kneeling on the floor or just existing in a body. The bruises also made me think about how women's bodies are often read through vulnerability first. Bruises on a woman can make people assume that she's weak or that she's been beaten up. When really, they've probably come from strength or movement or sport or simply continuing to stand after something hard. The series is kind of about not pretending that sexual associations don't exist but asking why they become the first assumption. Why does the viewers thought become the woman's responsibility? And why is she the only one who has to explain herself? I also made this painting feel a bit sporty on purpose because so many of you have asked me to touch on that side of the conversation. Like being in a gym or stretching or dancing, etc. And just how uncomfortable it can feel to exist in spaces that are still so male-dominated. It's kind of this strange contradiction where it's supposed to move and train and stretch and perform, be confident in your body about life but also somehow not be perceived sexually at the same time. I also want to say that I know that a lot of you have asked for more diverse women in my paintings and I do hear you. So far, while I've been traveling in Vietnam, I've mostly used myself and my friend who I'm traveling with and references because that's what I have access to right now. I absolutely plan on including more ethnicities and different kinds of women as a series of others. And I genuinely love to hear about your ethnicity specific experiences too and try to be more thoughtful with that and more careful when talking about experiences that aren't mine. You don't want to make them as accurate as possible and I can't really speak for my own experiences as a white woman. So please let me know. As you probably know right now, this painting series is going to release in August and if you haven't already signed up to my email list, do that if you want to discount an early access when I release the collection.