Photographer: Kate Sweeny
Despite having grown up in a conservative home in Salt Lake City, I pride myself on the art I create with my body as it is. Every line, every dimple, every perfect imperfection is wonderful proof we are here to experience the pleasures of being alive in whatever form. My body is not my whole self. It is my shell, and the art I create with it is my expression of life. With photography I’m able to express myself, my humanity, and allow others the space to do the same. It’s not always about creating the most visually stunning image, it’s having something to say through the image. I hope this is portrayed in my pictures, when I’m on either side of the lens.
In addition to modeling, I have several other business ventures I’m excited about. Light of Lillias is my photography, and Lillias’s Rack is my newest side project. I love being a personal shopper for people!
I am a freelance nude art model and content creator. I started my career in 2012 as a live art model at colleges and universities, and with accomplished artists in Utah. This is where I began to learn how to elicit emotions and give voice to ideas by how I pose my body and use my facial expressions. A few years later, after moving to Seattle, I started posing for photographers. I found myself traveling to cities all across the country, collaborating with many different artists.
My journey, however, starts earlier. Since I was a young person, I have been demoralized, desensitized, and brought to a prescribed understanding of self, of worth. Manipulated and disembodied images of women are consumed on social media feeds and in advertising, selling impossible beauty standards to impressionable young women and girls that develop body image issues. My curves are not “normal.” I refuse to live by those sentiments.
The task to heal our damaged body image comes down to representation and what we expose ourselves to. Since the dawn of humankind, art, in its many forms, contains incredible expressions of humanity. It is found in the paintings and sculptures of mythic figures, in songs and poems that sing of love and pain, in novels and plays that contemplate life and death. Humanity can be found in every medium. Photography is my medium.
