Los Angeles, USA-based painter, illustrator and content creator Mary Milliken creates paintings of fat bodies, much like their own. These pieces are made in order to redefine what society deems to be a healthy body. The works share how Milliken and many other people are able to live full lives in spite of meeting society’s ideals that a healthy body must be thin. This makes their work relevant to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Good Health And Well-Being.
A study carried out by Dove found that 45 million Americans felt dissatisfied with their body sizes. Additionally, 66 million Americans faced appearance-based discrimination. The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAFA) has found body size discrimination kept people from receiving necessary and sometimes even life-saving medical procedures. They also contribute to financial inequality, which, according to Dove, costs Americans around USD 500 billion a year. To make matters worse, body size discrimination also creates serious mental health barriers, as it pushes people into suffering from eating disorders and body dysmorphia.
This is why Milliken’s paintings, which celebrate fat bodies, are essential. Their pieces are made with a variety of mediums, a factor which they adjust depending on the message they would like to convey. For example, in their piece Self Portrait in Silver Bikini, Milliken has used mixed media, a combination of watercolours, pencils and crayons, to portray their meditation on the ambivalent nature of bodies, artistic success, and gender.
This piece was made when Milliken first moved to Los Angeles to pursue their dream of becoming a full-time artist. There, they were met with an art scene that was dominated by cis and thin artists, who, in turn, made art about cis and thin people.
“It made me wonder if a body like mine would ever be considered “worthy” of representation,” shared the artist. Hence, Milliken decided to create art that dove further into fat representation and celebration. They affirm the existence of fat creatives, serving as tokens that encourage themselves and other artists who resonate with the work to actively pursue a career in the arts.
Sometimes, Milliken’s pieces have less direct meanings behind them. This can be observed in their other mixed media piece, Birdie Blues. In this piece, a fat femme's body lays naked, with its head replaced by four birds. Milliken’s choice of colours in the painting — red, yellow and green — create a nauseating and chaotic effect, perhaps alluding to the depicted body’s state of mind. In this corollary, the birds act as depictions of fleeting chaotic thoughts and emotions. Here, Milliken has once more normalized the portrayal of a fat body in a painting about churning thoughts.
Aside from their figurative paintings, Milliken also creates text-based art, which they often sell as stickers or art prints. Much like their figurative paintings, these text-based artworks share phrases that encourage and affirm the existence of fat bodies. ‘Ask me About My Huge Naturals,' one piece says, while another bravely proclaims, ‘Glorifying Obesity.’
Milliken’s Glorifying Obesity piece is especially moving, as it strikes at the heart of society’s argument against the public representation of fat bodies. As the piece suggests, there exists a sentiment that showing fat bodies promotes obesity and unhealthy lifestyles that lead to various health issues. But as organizations like NAFA and creatives like Milliken have come to show, fat bodies do not make unhealthy bodies.
Find out more about Mary Milliken’s body-positive illustrations and their other work on their Instagram @marymilliken.art