Broken and Beautiful - Kintsugi Women Print

A detailed print of my original painting titled 'Broken And Beautiful'.

I’ve had some hard body-image days recently, and so I knew it was time to paint my feelings out. This piece is inspired by a Japanese pottery technique called Kintsugi (金継ぎ, "golden joinery"). The broken pottery is fixed using a gold lacquer, which reattaches the pieces together and makes it whole again. 

The purpose of this technique is to honor and highlight the history of the piece. It treats the breakage the piece has endured as something of beauty. I have been enraptured with this technique ever since I learned about it many years ago in my pottery class. It makes me emotional to just talk about. 

I chose to recreate one of my most popular pieces, and add some Kintsugi to the figures. We are all broken in different ways. Some of us get injured physically, some of us deal with mental health illness, others of us fight eating disorders and feel at war with our body. For years I have felt like my mind was broken. Struggling with anxiety and depression, I have felt broken so many times. But I believe that our struggles and our broken pieces make us all the more beautiful. 

I also wanted to create something that reiterates a message I am so passionate about - that ALL bodies are beautiful, no matter the size, shape, or color. When I have a daughter one day, I can’t wait to hang this in her room to remind her of that. We are ALL lumpy, bumpy, ‘imperfect’, and broken in certain ways. And all of those things are what make us so perfectly whole.

I use a beautiful, heavy-weight, acid-free paper for my prints. Prints come unframed and signed by the artist. All of my prints are border-less.

Each print is placed in a clear plastic sleeve to protect from moisture while traveling to you, and mailed in a rigid envelope.

Colors may vary due to monitor settings.