Beauty and the Beast – Can Life Drawing Support Female Students in Challenging Gendered Media Imagery?

Abstract

Abstract How does life drawing impact on a group of 14–16‐year‐old female art and design students and their perception of body image? In contemporary Western society, we are bombarded with advertising, social media and celebrity culture on a daily basis, often with a focus on body image. This article questions whether, due to this visual assault, young female students have a democratic choice in forming a relationship with the body. Alternatively, do they feel pressured into conforming to a media led image? This article analyses the reaction of a group of GCSE fine art students to life drawing and a naked female nude. It questions their perceptions of ‘normal’ and discusses if art‐based research projects can challenge contemporary issues and young female students' perception of body image.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 6 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.