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Meza-DesPlas noted in the
International Journal of the Image that she found enough troubling discrepancies to begin investigating the effects of these images through academic writing and painting .
Her style spares us any fantasy characterizations , but she gives us very little with which to reassign these women , to resettle a connection of normalcy with the unfamiliar . They are not here for our entertainment , but rather for our active contemplation .
She embraces the complexity of dissonance and irony quite consistently throughout her oeuvre . In her series Chicks with Guns ( 2011-2013 ) she remains loyal to the craft of figure painting by embracing the intricate folds and specific coloring of the skin , but she abandons Renaissance adornment and fantasy in doing so . She worked with full figured models to produce her heroine paintings , keeping them naked , posing them uncomfortably , and rejecting the prescribed sexy femme entirely .
Her models hold a range of handguns and rifles , which she had on loan from her brother-in-law . She presents her models crouching or seated in predatory postures with folds of soft skin and fat exposed , or some standing , facing us off in full frontal nudity . Most of the models had never held a gun before these work sessions , including the artist herself , so some of the awkwardness we see is attributed to the discomfort of holding unexpectedly heavy weapons for longer than a few minutes at a time .
Meza-DesPlas is originally from the open carry state of Texas where she and her sister were raised by a Mexican mother and Mexican-American father . During the 1970s , they lived in a low-income suburban neighborhood in Garland , Dallas , where gun violence was a frequent occurrence . She recalls having a neighbor whose weekly Saturday afternoon parties would conclude in fights and threatening gunfire by nightfall , “ My parents were always calling the cops on them .” As far as she knows , no one was killed .
“ I was never sold on the idea that I needed a gun . And I never saw an example of anyone
using a gun in selfdefense .” Her parents were both migrant workers focused on surviving and providing care for the family , with little time for art or activism . She was the first in her family who attended university . It was during the pursuit of her MFA at Maryland Institute College of Art and her BFA at University of North Texas that her studies in Art , History , and Feminism planted the seeds for her socially engaged practice .
When looking at these paintings , I found Meza-DesPlas ’ choices of models to be the most striking confrontation of all . These women challenge us to consider the normalized Hollywood image as absurd , to examine not only what entertainment media dramatizes , but also what it omits . Image is not just about what we see , but also what we don ’ t see .
It is important to note that though this concern mainly addresses civilian women , trained women in security and armed services are comparatively underrepresented , and when we do see them , they ’ re dismissed as unfeminine , yet unlikely to ever be as competently combatant . They are also less protected by men and institutionally silenced when bullied , harassed , or assaulted during their training to professionally serve alongside them . This missing part of the picture is as dangerous as the fantasy femme fatale in bikinis with AR-15s .
Who benefits from this image ? What do women lose or gain in this representation ?
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