Beautiful Bodies: Queer Joy & self-love
Ray Abu-Jaber
Pronouns: She/They
This art series, for me, represents the beauty in self-love and celebrating our bodies. I've recently started this series of body accepting drawings because i would very often have discussions with my ex and friends over "beauty expectations" and we felt about ourselves and our bodies. Too often we are wrongly told that stretch marks, celulite, body hair, rolls, and bellies are not "beautiful". I was so confused and saddened by how society deems these traits as negatives and makes people feel bad for having them. To me, and to many others of course, these elements are beautiful, and in a celebration of this I created these artworks to express the beauty and Queer Joy of self-love. I'd love to share this love with everyone through my art, and hopefully people/femme identified beauties/women who have these traits will feel love and warmth from my drawings 🥰🥰🥰 In this current digital art series, all about nudes, I hope to celebrate the joy in self-love, and the beauty of gorgeous chubby bellies, stretch marks, older women, and mom bods. I hope my art can bring you some Joy and show off the beauty of bellies!!!
Part of this art series includes some self-portraits of me. And this represents my own journey with my body, my gender identity, and my own Queer joy in self-love. Growing up, I experienced discomfort with my body and had some gender dysphoria around how i looked. I didn't like that, at eight years old, i already looked like a "fully formed woman", and would hate that people saw me as such. At the time, my gender identity felt very fluid, masc-aligned and at odds with my body (a healthy dose of internalised mysogyny didn't help either) and so i hated my body and felt uncomfortable in it. As i got older, i become engaged with Drag culture. Here were these people tearing gender apart and celebrating femininity and masculinity in new ways. Enlightened by this embracing of feminimity, i slowly began to embrace my own more and more, feeling more and more comfortable with myself. Now a days, you can't tell me shit about my appearance 😂😂😂 I love myself, my body, and embrace both the feminine and masculine sides of me more and more. And i can finally look in the mirror and love what i see, to the point of being able to draw myself and feel proud of my journey <3
Content Warning: Nudity / Content unsuitable for minors
Part of this art series includes some self-portraits of me. And this represents my own journey with my body, my gender identity, and my own Queer joy in self-love. Growing up, I experienced discomfort with my body and had some gender dysphoria around how i looked. I didn't like that, at eight years old, i already looked like a "fully formed woman", and would hate that people saw me as such. At the time, my gender identity felt very fluid, masc-aligned and at odds with my body (a healthy dose of internalised mysogyny didn't help either) and so i hated my body and felt uncomfortable in it. As i got older, i become engaged with Drag culture. Here were these people tearing gender apart and celebrating femininity and masculinity in new ways. Enlightened by this embracing of feminimity, i slowly began to embrace my own more and more, feeling more and more comfortable with myself. Now a days, you can't tell me shit about my appearance 😂😂😂 I love myself, my body, and embrace both the feminine and masculine sides of me more and more. And i can finally look in the mirror and love what i see, to the point of being able to draw myself and feel proud of my journey <3
Content Warning: Nudity / Content unsuitable for minors
