Gallery Purchase with funds raised during the 2018 Give Campus Campaign

Venus, the goddess of sex, beauty, and fertility, is often depicted nude in the artistic tradition. Elizabeth Tolson’s The Discovery of Venus attempts to examine Venus through the eyes of a woman and beauty as the grotesque. The artist asks, “What is beauty? How is beauty defined? How can women reclaim the gaze and transform how they see themselves?,” in this case through the performance of a wearable garment fitted with LED lights.