About Corran Shrimpton
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Bio
Corran Shrimpton is an American sculptor whose mixed media figurative sculptures examine the experience of being a woman in our culture today. By subverting the dominant narrative around what is normal or acceptable for a woman to look like, she explores beauty as a powerful cultural construction and social currency.
Shrimpton is from Syracuse, NY and received her BFA with a minor in Philosophy from Alfred University. She has worked as a teacher and Artist in Residence at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, FL and the Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, IL. She is the recipient of the Lisa Elwell Ceramic Artist Endowed Encouragement Award and is currently an MFA candidate and Welch Fellow at Georgia State University, Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design.
Artist Statement
In a culture where women are pressured to be smaller in both their body and personality, I want to embrace the monstrous woman: I want to show women who are not afraid to take up space both physically and socially. My mixed media figurative sculptures contend with classical depictions of “The Venus” as a symbol of passive, anonymous and enticing femininity displayed for the sole purpose of visual pleasure and the male gaze. By complicating the representation of a woman’s body, I resist summary and objectification and instead acknowledge their humanity and their agency. I unapologetically present big bodies with bulging bellies, rolls, and stretchmarks to subvert the dominant narrative around what is normal or acceptable for a woman to look like and to explore beauty standards as a powerful cultural construction. I want to point out beauty as a social currency and recognize how body image translates to how one values themselves and how society values them. I want to free women from the endless chase of some unattainable ideal body and to help identify how the beauty and wellness industries are highly motivated to make us feel bad about ourselves and to keep us unsatisfied. My sculptures are often stand-alone which reflects the isolation that body shame promotes. I want to create honest vulnerable moments that remind people we are not alone in this experience and we are not the problem.