Normal Bodies by Sophie Bellamy & Cecilia Lizcano López

This book contains a selection of anonymous nude paintings of several women, non-binary people, and trans men. Alongside every painting, each model has written a short piece of writing about their relationship with their body – and you know what? I think this is one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen for a book in a long time. I absolutely love it.

If you’ve just read that description and find yourself thinking, well, what’s the point of that? The intention behind it was to help strive towards a broader notion of body neutrality. So often in our society, we’re encouraged to see nudity as inherently sexual, even though nakedness is the natural state of all our bodies – this then feeds into body image troubles and issues with self-confidence.

The pieces of writing that accompany each painting confirm this too – some are very positive, while others are really sad. However, one thing that they all have in common is that the models all experienced some kind of shame of self-consciousness about their body. I hope that those who struggle with these things will be able to take some solace from the fact that they seem to be universal among people of every different body type – if they aren’t currently dealing with it, it’s something that they have overcome in the past.

Aside from the statements alongside each one, I also really admire. The portraits are really, really good. I studied them closely for inspiration in my own art, and I have to say that the artist did a really good job of capturing the fact that every body really is a beautiful piece of art.

Of all the projects of this kind that I’ve seen, this is my personal favourite. It truly is a celebration of the human body and perfectly underlines the fact that we come in all shapes and sizes and no matter how someone looks, they have no reason to be ashamed of their body.

Rating: 9.5/10

Buy it here.

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