Boxed

Female with long black hair wearing blackclothing and sitting inside a box.

Painting of a teenage girl wearing a purple shirt and jeans in a box

Painting of young non-binary person in a box wearing denim shorts and a blue shirt

Painting of young black woman in a box wearing jeans and a black t- shirt

Painting of a woman wearing a yellow blazer with red hair who is in a box. Her expression is one of distress.

Painting of young woman in a box. she has long red hair and is wearing grey pants and black boots.

Young person with short spiky red hair inside a box. They are wearing a white slip and Doc Marten boots.

Painting of a woman in a box with long black hair, wearing a red shirt.

“The woman’s body is one of the essential elements of the situation she occupies in this world.”

-Simone De Beauvoir

Though I started this series depicting women of various ages, I recently narrowed my subjects to a variety of young people aged 12-23 who are focused more strongly on their physical identity. The box can be seen as a metaphor for the physical constraints of the body. Each subject has a different relationship to the box. Some are clearly uncomfortable (possibly trapped) and are struggling to break out, while others have treated the box like a cocoon-like enclosure which provides comfort.

With each painting, I aim to explore my own feelings about identity and restrictions in my physical body while attempting to understand and empathize with my subjects and their own feelings of comfort, confinement and entrapment within their bodies.

Barbara Pollak-Lewis

Painter/ CURATOR/ educator

BOXed