About Perceive Me
Where It Started
For a long time, my artist statement began with five words: I hate pictures of myself.
I grew up hating to have my photograph taken. When I was 11 or 12, my grandma took my brother and me on a road trip to San Francisco and took photos every spare moment. In one, I deliberately have a bitchy face because I was getting frustrated. I didn't like the way I looked. I didn't want my ugly, large nose and double chin memorialized.
The concept for Perceive Me came from believing I was unattractive and unworthy because I am fat. I'd never been asked out on a date and I blamed my body for that invisibility. I felt like I disappeared in rooms. Art, therapy and aging make you question all the baggage you bring forward. We value our self-worth based on how we imagine others perceive us. But how would I ever figure that out?
The name says it all—Perceive Me. See me. Acknowledge that I exist in this body.
But here's what I didn't expect: so much of my self-worth came from how I imagined others saw me. I was so caught up in what I thought people were thinking about my body that I couldn't see myself clearly at all.
I've always used my body as the subject of and medium for my art. During grad school at Cal State Northridge, my mentor Samantha Fields encouraged me to explore my eating disorder through art. I created The Gracie Kendal Project where my Second Life avatar—drop dead gorgeous, everything I wished I could be—became a way to examine my struggles with food, body size, and identity. I shaved my head (both Gracie and me in real life), swearing I wouldn't grow out my hair until standards of beauty changed. It was the most freeing thing I've ever done.
Years later, I created Plus—photographing my naked body pressed against a translucent bathroom door in a private performance celebrating the silhouettes and curves. Around the same time, I did Losing Weight, shredding thirty 'skinny photos' I'd carried for years as reminders to lose weight, then shredding all my family photos and negatives I'd been carrying around as literal "weight."
These performances led to Perceive Me.
The Original Project (2018-2019)
Between November 2018 and August 2019, I posed nude for 60+ artists. I scheduled three to four sessions a week, meeting individually with each artist. We had mind-altering conversations about body image, identity, how we imagine others see us. These trusted friends, colleagues and peers created paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, videos, 3D prints—their collective vision of me.
Every single session changed me. Did I love being in front of the camera? Yes. I modeled in different poses. I felt glamorous, classy, beautiful, seen. The poses came naturally. I was having fun. I felt like a supermodel—thin, bold, beautiful, elegant, sexy... everything my avatar was that I wasn't. The artwork was amazing.
Then I looked in the mirror.
But here's what happened: their collective vision of me healed me on levels beyond the body. Being truly seen without judgment, having my fat body become worthy artistic subject—it removed layers of self-talk negativity. I was a little less self-conscious, a little more considerate of my body, more free to let go of ideas about how others perceive me.
I'm 52 now. Still single, no kids. And I'm realizing—I actually love my independence. I love my freedom. I'm not waiting to be chosen anymore. I'm not trying to make myself smaller or more acceptable or more visible in the ways I thought I needed to be. I'm learning that what other people think matters less than I thought. I'm building confidence in myself, in my own perception of who I am.
And I'm not doing it alone. This project created a community—a network of artists, friends, colleagues, and people who get it. This support system is helping me understand what's real and true. Not the imagined judgments I carried for so long, but actual connection with people who see me, who collaborate with me, who celebrate bodies that take up space.
I also see how many women I know have been assaulted. How many relationships end in divorce. How much I don't actually understand what romantic love looks like because I've never seen it modeled in a way that feels safe or real. So maybe my independence isn't about not being chosen. Maybe it's about choosing something else entirely.
The project premiered at Cal State LA in January 2020, then traveled to Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, Coastline Community College, Studio Channel Islands, and Mesa College. The catalog sold out. We got press in Artillery, Hyperallergic, LA Times.
What It's Become
Perceive Me isn't just an exhibition or a catalog or Instagram posts. It's performance, platform for empowerment, taking back our bodies, being true and powerful and strong no matter what body shape, size, color, or gender we are.
And it's evolving.
At The Other Art Fair in 2024, I tested something revolutionary: Community Nude Portrait Sessions. We invited anyone from the community to pose nude with professional artists creating quick studies, sketches, portraits. Not traditional figure drawing classes. Radical seeing.
Here's how it works: Community members sign up for 20-30 minute sessions. They meet briefly with the artist beforehand—sharing what brings them, what they're nervous about, what they hope to experience. Then they pose. The artist works. Afterward, they see themselves through another's eyes—not the mirror's judgment, not the male gaze, not capitalism's surveillance, but genuine artistic attention.
Participants described "jumping for joy," having "layers of negativity gone." Artists called the sessions "life-changing" and "deeply moving and humbling."
We're creating conditions for people to experience what I experienced through Perceive Me: the healing that happens when someone truly looks at you without judgment. When your fat body, disabled body, aging body, trans body, scarred body becomes art—not despite its "flaws" but because of its absolute worthiness of attention.
Where It's Going
The collaborations revealed what's possible beyond individual transformation. There's evidence that being truly seen without judgment creates actual change. I'm ready to test whether this practice can scale—whether the community nude portrait sessions can give others access to that same transformative experience.
The growing archive: Over 100 artists have now collaborated on Perceive Me. We're building an archive that will preserve this work as historical documentation, potentially for museum collections. We're exploring new models for selling high-quality prints while keeping original works in the archive, with revenue supporting both the project and participating artists.
Community infrastructure: These sessions prioritize marginalized bodies—fat folks, disabled folks, BIPOC, queer and trans people, elders—whose bodies are typically erased from artistic celebration. But anyone can participate. We're testing whether Perceive Me can evolve from my personal healing journey into an organizing tool others can use.
Exhibition opportunities: We're planning presentations at Start Up Art Fair 2026 and continuing to seek institutional partners nationwide. Each venue allows for working with gender studies classes, community talks, educational programming—reaching new audiences and creating more opportunities for transformation.
Documentation: A second catalog is in development documenting this next phase—the expansion from one person's vulnerable performance to community practice, from individual healing to collective liberation infrastructure.
The Mission
Perceive Me is for every person who finds themselves feeling down, unloved, unsupported because of those who value the outside over the inside. It's about healing, overcoming the past to look toward the future and affecting change. It's about fighting and challenging the standards set in place through money, control, power, greed, the patriarchy.
At least 30 million people in the U.S. suffer from eating disorders. We're surrounded by advertisements, TV shows, movies, the diet and beauty industries trying to sell us an ideal of beauty—telling us we can have power, control, wealth, anything we want, but only if we look a certain way. Those outside this standard are seen as 'less than' and undeserving of attention, love and dignity.
There are days when I feel the change. I'm awake and aware. I've persevered. I confront, challenge, deconstruct and share these issues so others can be empowered and inspired. I share my plus size, curvy, imperfect body as a symbol for the strength we all need.
Perceive Me may never end. It's now a significant part of my creative and healing life journey—and increasingly, a tool for collective transformation.
To participate in community portrait sessions, collaborate as an artist, or bring Perceive Me to your institution, contact perceivemeart@gmail.com
Follow the project: Instagram @perceivemeart