User:Amayeda/gap analysis

Gap analysis

 * What is the title of the article in which you identified a gap. If no article exists at all, what should the title be?

Sheila Pree Bright


 * Document the gap you found, describe how you identified it, and analyze its impact on knowledge.

The artist I picked was Sheila Pree Bright. While searching for a feminist artist I came across her photography work. I was drawn to her Plastic Bodies series. When I searched her on Wikipedia, there was no page for her. Sheila focuses on women of color and their often difficult relationship with white beauty standards. By combining images of real women with faces of dolls, the artist questions the dubious standard of beauty in American culture.

Biography: Sheila Pree Bright is an award winning fine art photographer nationally known for her photographic series, Young Americans, Plastic Bodies and Suburbia. In the art world, they describe her as a cultural anthropologist. She continues to portray large scale works that combine a wide range of contemporary culture. She went viral on Huffington Post for her Plastic Bodies series. This series was in an important documentary called Through the Lens Darkly. The documentary explores the important role of Black photographers in capturing identity and celebrating images that explore pay tribute to the humanity of African Americans.

Education: Sheila graduated from Georgia State University with a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Photography.

Works: 1960Now, Working Artist Grant, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Atlanta GA 1960Now, Flux Projects 2015, Atlanta, GA 1960Now, With Eyes Wide Open, Figure One, University of Illinois, Champagne, IL Plastic Bodies, Diﬀusion: The Cardiﬀ International Festival of Photography, United Kingdom Plastic Bodies, Black Like Who ? Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL Plastic Bodies, On Being Black, Arnika Gallery, Atlanta, GA Young Americans, Mason Fine Art, Atlanta, GA

Exhibitions and Awards: Sheila Pree Bright has been in many exhibitions and attained many awards. She has been in the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Smithsonian Anacostia Museum in Washington, D.C., the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Time Inc, NY, FotoFest in Houston and the Leica Gallery in New York. She has been featured in numerous publications, the recipient of numerous awards and in private and public collections to name a few; Library of Congress, Washington DC, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA and de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, CA.


 * Propose a paragraph of new or substantially edited content based on reliable sources. (If you are editing existing content, post the current version along with your edited version, and clearly mark which is which.)

Since Sheila Pree Bright is not on Wikipedia, it is important to bridge this gap. African American’s and their beauty and body images are underrepresented in society. In her Plastic Bodies series, she contrasts fragmented bodies of multicultural women with dolls. The blend of human and artificial features is unsettling and helps make the global assimilation of cultures, ethnicities, and loss of personal identity many women of color experience as a result painfully obvious. America is so diverse. "The serious underrepresentation of women of color in media is really alarming" (Patton, 2006). One manifestation of white supremacy is the use of whiteness as the standard of beauty. "When whiteness is considered superior, white people are considered more attractive by definition and people of other races deviates from that standard, they are considered ugly" (Parker et al., 2002). The beauty standards in the United States are among the most unrealistic and unattainable in the world. The ideal women in America are tall, thin, big boobs, long flowing hair, and a toned body. In the increasingly global community, issues of diversity and regional identity have become more important. “Western commercialism’s impact is making it difficult for women of diverse backgrounds to achieve self-definition with regards to their own ideas of beauty” (Hall et al., 1996). Sheila’s goal is to show how the media’s advertising impacts beauty for girls and women of color. She always tries to show how Barbie is used in Western culture to encourage one standard of beauty. Even on magazine covers, graphic artists are airbrushing and manipulating photographs in software programs, making the image of a small waist and clear skin flawless. As a result, the female body becomes a replica of a doll, and the essence of natural beauty in popular American culture is replaced by fantasy. "While representation of women of color in media has increased slightly over the past decade, finding positive depictions of women with dark skin tones or natural hair is still nearly impossible in mainstream media" (White, 2012). Artist like Sheila are taking the lead to make sure women of color art represented in the media. As a black photographer she explores the important role in capturing identity and celebrating images that explore pay tribute to the humanity of women of color. Without Bright doing advocacy in her photography, the female body norm would still remain unrealistic.


 * List the reliable sources that could be used to improve this gap. (You can use the Cite tool from the editing toolbar above to input and format your sources.)

Bond, S., & Crash, T. (1992). Skin Color and Body Images among African-American College Women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 22(11), 874-888.

Bright, S. (2015). Sheila Pree Bright. Retrieved from http://www.sheilapreebright.com/

Hall, B., Christine, C., & Jimerson, J. (1996). Beauty is in the Soul of the Beholder. Journal of Psychology, 6(45), 34-41.

Mason Fine Art. (2015). Sheila Pree Bright. Retrieved February 10, 2016, from http://masonfineartandevents.com/sheila-pree-bright-bio/

Parker, S., Nitcher, M., & Vuckovic, N. (2002). Body Image and Weight Concerns among African American and White Females. Society for Applied Anthropology, 542(2), 103-111.

Patton, T. (2006). African American Women and Their Struggles with Beauty, Body Image and Hair. NAWSA Journal, 18(2), 24-51.

White, A. (2012). Racial and Gender Attitudes as Predictors of Feminist Activism Among Self-Identified African American Feminists. Journal of Black Psychology, 37(29), 196-208.