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The artist’s Maria Raquel Cochez’s impressive body of work is powerfully autobiographical, cataloging her painful struggle with eating disorders, weight loss surgery, and recovery. In her recent photographs, she claims the human right to accept and love her body, promoting body acceptance for all women in the process.
For her “CKMe” and “Another Mermaid” project, she inserts herself into ads and billboards, showcasing her un-photoshopped physique, complete with beautiful “flaws” that are normally edited out of depictions of women: her abdomen shows the marks of time and experience, her breasts fall gracefully without being pushed up.
In the ever-present CKOne perfume ads, we are presented one vision of the “cool girl” that excludes many bodies and voices, and with the infamous “bikini season,” we are bombarded with a singular definition of what constitutes a beach babe. The truth remains that we are all beautiful, and we are all equally capable of enjoying and celebrating our bodies. Brava, Maria!
To learn more about this incredible artist, visit some of her raw, emotionally charged works over at Beautiful/Decay.
