Sonia Beckwith

The Bathers

The Bathers is a hand-drawn digital animation about three women bathing in nature presented in an installation format with handmade cushions and fake grass creating a comfortable seating area to view the work

“The Bathers features three women washing themselves in nature and caring for one another. They are stretchy and smushy, drawn in a digital cartoon style with saturated skin tones and exaggerated physical traits. These women live in an abstract painting in which I have collaged blocks of texture, colour and gestural marks to form the suggestion of a landscape. The shots include closeups of the characters pulling their skin and hair, touching, cleaning, smushing, and performing tactile bodily actions in this sensory viewing experience. They live in a make-believe world in which notions of appropriate and inappropriate disappear. In my world the characters create their own standards and are not bound by power structures that determine what is seen as beautiful or desirable. The relationships between the characters are my idealised version of friendship. These women perform rituals that only they know the purpose of. They understand each other’s wants and needs and are completely at ease with each other. Through this installation they allow viewers to take a glimpse into their alternate reality.”