
Senior Thesis
For my Senior Thesis, I conducted research to explore how feminized individuals negotiate beauty and body image practices while seeking to understand the intertwined relationship between popular culture, representations of femininity, and psychological states, paying particular attention to the relationship between contradictory, yet coexisting, visual and narrative discourses including the “no- makeup makeup” look, and makeup as a tool for self-care.
For this project, I studied over 60 beauty tutorials in a popular series titled Vogue’s Beauty Secrets published by Conde Nast and Vogue magazine on the brand’s YouTube channel. The videos feature celebrities and influencers who discuss and perform their beauty and skincare routines and discuss their personal experiences and notions of what beauty means to them.
Centered on a distinctive blend of feminist media theory, social critique, and tongue-in-cheek humor, this project explores the fashioning of self-identity in relation to the effects of social media on confidence, psychological states, and the ideals of beauty, gender roles, and self-surveillance.
Presented as an installation art piece comprised of a smart mirror with an Instagram Live interface that features an endless stream of likes and comments of praise, admiration, and support.
The concept touches on the effects of social media to influence self-esteem, identity, and body monitoring, especially for women and girls.

Senior Art Show
My work encompasses the mediums of photography, collage, design, digital art, illustration, and new media as well as writings about art and culture. Centered on a distinctive blend of feminist theory, social critique, and tongue-in-cheek humor, my concerns traverse the fashioning of self-identity for women in relation to hegemonic ideals featured in art, politics, history, culture, and popular media.

EDUARDO CARRILLO SCHOLARS SHOW 2021
The Eduardo Carrillo Scholarship, established in 1997 in memory of UC Santa Cruz Art Professor Emeritus and famed Chicano muralist Eduardo Carrillo, is awarded to the most talented emerging student-artists in the Art Department. Since its inception, the scholarship has benefited over 300 students.
In celebration of Eduardo Carrillo’s life, the 2021 scholarship recipients, and the importance of teaching art and fostering creativity, the Art Department is proud to welcome you to the Eduardo Carrillo Scholarship Virtual Group Show.

Fashion Photography in Open Ceilings Magazine
My work encompasses the mediums of photography, collage, design, digital art, illustration, and new media as well as writings about art and culture. Centered on a distinctive blend of feminist theory, social critique, and tongue-in-cheek humor, my concerns traverse the fashioning of self-identity for women in relation to hegemonic ideals featured in art, politics, history, culture, and popular media.
In the art project, Decolonize Vogue, I aim to apply a critical feminist lens to the normalized Euro-centric beauty and cultural standards that are historically featured in the Vogue magazine archive. This project expands on my research in the Feminist Studies department at UCSC by exploring the performance and gender in popular culture. The art project is focused on recontexualizing the women featured in Vogue magazine so that the viewer is encouraged to explore narratives outside of mainstream social construction of femininity and the female body used as a commodity to sell products and ideals.
Topics covered include climate change, colonial domination, immigration, the wealth gap, feminine confidence, the fashion industry, and an exaggeration of gender roles. My hope is to encourage the viewer to consider these topics through a critical lens through the use of archive collage work.
In the art project, Decolonize Vogue, I aim to apply a critical feminist lens to the normalized Euro-centric beauty and cultural standards that are historically featured in the Vogue magazine archive. This project expands on my research in the Feminist Studies department at UCSC by exploring the performance and gender in popular culture. The art project is focused on recontexualizing the women featured in Vogue magazine so that the viewer is encouraged to explore narratives outside of mainstream social construction of femininity and the female body used as a commodity to sell products and ideals.
Topics covered include climate change, colonial domination, immigration, the wealth gap, feminine confidence, the fashion industry, and an exaggeration of gender roles. My hope is to encourage the viewer to consider these topics through a critical lens through the use of archive collage work.
This article explores how women negotiate beauty and body image practices within the context of mass media paying particular attention to the relationship between psychological states and representations of femininity. Drawing on contemporary research, this work is based on an analysis of feminist and psychological theories alongside a popular beauty tutorial series titled Beauty Secrets published by Conde Nast and Vogue magazine on the brand’s YouTube social media channel.
This paper seeks to understand the intertwined relationship between popular culture, women’s beautification processes, and psychological states, while examining the fluctuation between contradictory, yet coexisting, visual and narrative discourses including the “no- makeup makeup” look, and makeup as a tool for self-care.
The analysis is based on qualitative in-depth examination of Vogue’s Beauty Secrets videos posted to youtube, and the findings are discussed in the light of Judith Butler’s theory of Gender Performance and Fredrickson and Roberts’s Objectification Theory of internalized objects of sexual desires in our appearance-based culture.