Beth Knight

"Small" 48 x 60" oil on canvas. Available. DM me!

https://medium.com/.beth.knight/body-series-a37499bebf3c

Body Series Part One

I took the reference photo for this painting in May of 2021. It had been over a year of Covid and I had done most of it alone in my flat with my boxer, Jaeger. I had my heart smashed to bits by a friend I developed feelings for. I was in a bad place mentally, though ironically the best shape of my life because I couldn't stop working out. On the outside, I looked good. The face I put to the world looked beautiful. If you’d met me, you’d have thought I was pretty, happy, and cheerful. I’d later call this facade “The Beth Show”.

Then I’d go home alone and shut out the world and implode. I took the photo because I wanted to feel not alone in my sadness. As if capturing that image of myself and then being able to look at it meant two people were sharing that pain. It was fascinating because I was able to feel compassion for myself. I was not able to muster up this same compassion when I looked in the mirror. I loved the grotesqueness of it. My face was distorted and there was so much emotion happening in the image.

I didn’t paint that image until August of 2022. I kept it in my camera roll like a little secret I desperately wanted to share with people. I hired an art coach, Katy Arrington, to help me get over my fears. “What if people hate it?”, “People will think I’m ugly”, “No one will ever want to buy this kind of art, what’s the point?”. The biggest fear was upsetting my mother. The idea of my sadness frightening her was harder to bear than feeling the sadness itself.

I painted it though, talking out my fears with Katy and getting a lot of, “Is that true?” in response. It wasn’t true. I wasn’t responsible for my mother’s emotional state. Women don’t have to be portrayed as beautiful all the time. People like art like this, some even buy it.

I posted it on Facebook and then immediately deleted the app. In my next coaching session with Katy we opened it together. My mom had left a comment, “No mother wants to see her daughter like this.” It wasn’t the lecture I was expecting. That comment was one of dozens of other comments saying how much people loved it. People loved my work. I cried again with relief and happiness, no painting necessary.

What I learned from that was, that people want to feel things. I want to feel things. I’ve always struggled with feeling my feelings and identifying my emotions. My art has become an integral part of me learning how to do that. And in that process, I get to bring people along for the ride. It’s the connection I’ve been craving my entire life. I wanted to be seen for the imperfect human I am.

It’s hard to write this in 2024 and conjure up the same fear I had at that time around showing myself. It was the beginning of my integration with my shadow side. I was looking for everyone else to validate myself when I was too afraid to shine a flashlight into my inner world. I had a lot of therapists and coaches that I was fortunate enough to be able to work with. I proudly hang this painting in my flat to remember how brave I was that one day in Covid when I picked up a camera mid-meltdown, and snapped a photo.

A man is a man, a woman is a woman, a dick is a dick, and now a mug is on a mug.