Artist Bio
Seattle based multimedia assemblage and soft sculpture artist Beni McAllister was originally born in California, but has lived in the Seattle area for most of her life. She is a BFA candidate of Cornish College of the Arts, graduating in Spring of 2024. Beni explores her lived experiences as a Mexican-American femme identifying person, and the complexities surrounding the performance of femininity, and the everyday act of being “girl”. Beni has shown in various group shows, including “Honey, I’m Home!” at The Behnke Family Gallery, as well as in the 9th Ave Gallery, all within Seattle, Washington.
Artist Statement
Sugar, and spice, and everything nice. That’s what they say girls are made of. I like to think that’s true, though I wonder what makes women. Through installation, mixed media, assemblage, and soft sculpture, I reflect on my enrollment in a 2000’s American culture, and the complex relationship between being a young girl and wanting to be a grown woman. With its endless sexualization and objectification of women and femme bodies, and unadulterated access to them, I now ruminate with how this era of my upbringing has influenced how I interact within, and perceive myself, in today’s society. Through collective memory and appropriation, I explore my own lived experiences along with the complexities between gendered stereotypes and a feminine, queer, Mexican-American identity. Analyzing the learned performance of my gender identity and acts of femininity, I lay bare my existence as a girl, now as a woman. I represent the everyday act of being “girl”. My work is a reconnaissance of learned expectations and expression of self. It is the reclamation of the “girly girl” and a celebration of the complexities of identity. It reflects when I was taught what makes a woman.
Contact
beni.mcallister@arts.cornish.edu
Instagram: @benirito