Fat Positive Art – The Final Installment from Anneka Morgan

By Anneka Morgan, @booksandbras

Man oh man… this took us a while to get out to you because Anneka Morgan totally rocked and gave us SO MUCH content it’s crazy!

In honor of Fat is not a Violation Friday, we deliver to you the final installment of Fat Positive Art

One of the best ways to see what a culture values is to view its art. Art gives insight into what a culture deems beautiful, the lenses a culture has, the blinders a culture has, the truths a culture believes. In this way, finding the world of fat positive art had a huge impact on me; I could finally see myself as worthy of being put on a canvass. I’ve put together a compilation of some of my favorite fat positive artists, picking two pieces from their collection to highlight in this article. This is by no means an exhaustive list (and maybe at some point I’ll do a part two), but articles can’t go on forever. As I have no knowledge of art history, I’ve kept my descriptions short to let the art speak for itself. I’ve focused primarily on artists that use Instagram as a platform, because that is where I’ve built my body positive community, but I’ve thrown in a few bonus, non-instagrammers at the end! If you know of fat-positive artists that I didn’t list here, I’d love for you to message me their work! Even if I know about them, they may have fallen off my radar. I’ve also tried to focus on a variety of “erotic” levels; I think it’s important to show fat people being sexual, and also it’s important to show that nudity is not necessarily or inherently sexual. Finally, please keep in mind that I’ve kept this list in alphabetical order, because I didn’t even want to start trying to rate them as “favorites” or “best” or anything of the sort.

Warning, much of the following art is NSFW.

@ruben_esq: sexy giggly, https://www.zazzle.com/rubenesq

The ladies depicted in this account are most definitely sexy, and they want you to know it! Most of them are smiling or laughing, enjoying their sensuality or giving a come-hither look. This is a great account for when I need a boost of sexy self-confidence, as looking at these ladies flaunting the beauty of bigger women just makes me want to scream “yes girl work it!!!”

@sharpen_your_teeth: different styles, lots of different body types, http://artbyamberdelaney.weebly.com/

Amber will go through phases with how many fat-bodied people she is posting, I think mainly because she often works in series, so it depends on the series she’s currently creating. She has done pieces consisting of disabilities and deformities, which I think is a really important part of body positivity. Most of her subjects are women, but she has done men as well, and I love seeing men included too.

@shona_mcandrew www.shonamcandrew.com

I have such a soft spot for Shona’s girls. She works in both painting and paper mache sculpture (I think often painting first and then creating a sculpture from that), and she gives each (or at least most of them) names. Norah, Caroline, Elizabeth… They’re all so beautiful, whether they’re on the toilet, brushing their teeth, masturbating, shaving their legs, or dozing in the tub. I honestly want to be best friends with all of them.

@yogaprints: focuses on pregnancy and motherhood in yoga, different body types, some men, body hair, https://www.yogaprints.dk/

Marie’s drawings of nude yogis focus a lot on pregnancy and early motherhood, which as a childfree person I don’t identify with, but she includes other types of people as well. Fat, older, male. I love seeing the saggy boobs, stretch marks, body hair, and undereye circles. I think those are states of being most of us can identify with, whether we have kids! While most of her art is drawing and watercolor on paper, sometimes there are other things like little paintings on rocks and things like that.