Once, being plump meant wealth and health. Today the worship of thinness is just another social script, stitched with class and gender expectations. A woman’s body is never really private: it is read, judged, and policed, whether you want it or not.

Growing up in the Soviet Union — where the rule was “don’t stand out, be like everyone else” — I tried anyway. For that, I was mocked at school and ridiculed in the streets. Decades later, I still see the same rejection of anyone who looks “different.” It makes me want to show how much beauty lives in those differences.

Sophie paints self-portraits filled with self-hatred; my portraits of her reflect love. Working together, she took me through the swings of someone wrestling with their own reflection.

This project criticizes the objectification of the female body. It’s about giving permission to be unlike one another, and about seeing beauty in diversity, even when society trains us to overlook it.