Analog collage
Paper on paper
12” x 10”
your body, my choice (2024)
In Your Body, My Choice, Honey boldly confronts the complex intersection between bodily autonomy, institutional control, and societal voyeurism. Dominating the composition is Caravaggio's iconic Judith Beheading Holofernes, a historic depiction of feminine strength, autonomy, and righteous vengeance against patriarchal violence. Judith’s act symbolizes a powerful reclamation, asserting female agency through defiant, visceral action.
Set against the backdrop of a grand cathedral interior, the sacred architecture represents the oppressive religious narratives historically wielded to control and regulate women's bodies. Honey’s signature tentacles make a decisive appearance here, engaging directly with the structural elements of the church, actively dismantling and tearing apart these restrictive religious ideologies. In doing so, Honey visually manifests her own artistic agency… picking apart dogma, tearing down societal constraints, and reclaiming control from the oppressive forces symbolized by the religious setting.
A vintage television and camera loom subtly within the composition, symbols of media consumption and surveillance. The television, consistently featured in Honey’s work, signifies the pervasive influence of mass media in shaping societal attitudes toward women, bodies, and autonomy. Meanwhile, the camera embodies surveillance (religious, cultural, or governmental scrutiny) that continuously watches, judges, and polices women’s choices and freedoms. Together, these elements emphasize the voyeuristic and intrusive gaze that women regularly experience, subject to the relentless observation and influence of forces beyond their control.
The deliberate inclusion of Judith Beheading Holofernes, further emphasizes a layered critique. Caravaggio's Judith, enacting a physical dismantling of oppressive male authority, becomes an analogy for Honey’s own act of dismantling oppressive cultural and religious narratives through her art. At the bottom of the collage, a provocative mixture of blood and fresh strawberry pie captures the uncomfortable collision between indulgence and violence, appetite and destruction, highlighting society's complex and problematic relationship with female sexuality and autonomy.
Ultimately, Your Body, My Choice serves as Honey’s unapologetic challenge to institutions and cultural systems that commodify, monitor, and control women’s bodies under false moral pretenses. With deliberate symbolism and raw, confrontational imagery, she invites viewers into a space where societal assumptions unravel, encouraging them to question their own complicity in sustaining oppressive narratives… and perhaps, inspiring them to help tear those narratives down.