Deborah Conroy
Untitled

Each summer I spend time at our local pool and enjoy watching little girls staring quite unselfconsciously, in amazement at older women (like me) in the shower. Some women are self conscious in their bathers and others let it 'all hang out' and are at the happy stage of being 'comfortable in their own skin'. I think the young girls would stand there staring all day if their mothers did not come and pull them away. One can only wonder what remarkable thoughts go around their young heads.

Body image is a contemporary issue for Tasmanian women. I wonder what message the young girl receives when she is dragged away from staring. Is it that this vision of showering a less than so called 'perfect' body, in freedom and delight, is not something to be admired or accepted? Or can it be that she has comprehended the delight of just being alive!

On the right hand side of the painting I have painted the mother of the young girl with a shadow that threatens to touch the girl. This represents the shadow of some of the attitudes that we may take with us from our mothers into the future.