"Comfort and Joy"
Painted, glittered, threaded and vacuum sealed Yogurtland Spoons
Installation, 2019
As a dedicated conceptualist and surrealist autobiographer, this work emerges from my eating disorder and compulsive relationship with frozen yogurt from Yogurtland. Each spoon represents a moment of seeking comfort through consumption—a ritualistic attempt to fill an unfillable void. I collected these spoons over countless visits, supplementing with purchases on eBay, then transformed them through painting, wrapping in thread or glitter, and preserving them in jars like specimens of my own dysfunction.
The transformation of these humble plastic utensils into precious objects mirrors how we assign meaning to our coping mechanisms. The obsessive decoration—painting, glittering, threading—parallels the obsessive nature of disordered eating itself. Preserved in glass containers, they become relics of consumption, evidence of a body trying to find solace in a world that constantly judges it as inadequate.
This work is part of a larger body that addresses the de(con)struction of self in relation to society's perception of beauty. The spoons function as tools of both nourishment and self-harm, embodying the contradictions faced by those whose bodies don't conform to narrow standards. Each preserved spoon becomes a meditation on the complexities of gender identity, body image, and a society that privileges women's physical appearance over character and intellect.
The title "Comfort and Joy" carries bitter irony—these objects represent neither, but rather the desperate search for both in a culture that denies comfort to bodies like mine and finds no joy in our existence.
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