In Meat On Her Bones at Waterloo Arts, photographer Rachel Feinstein explores the complexities of modern womanhood using midcentury visual references. A New York-based artist and Kent State alumnus, Feinstein extracts elements from vintage advertisements, fashion, and classic cinema. She then reinterprets them in compositions that challenge our perceptions of traditional femininity and patriarchal systems.

“Growing up, I was enchanted by the old cinematic masterpieces of the 40s and 50s, which tended to contradict my own beliefs regarding women’s potential and agency,” Feinstein writes. “In my work, the viewer first sees an idealized image, but when one takes the time to look deeper, the tension and discomfort become evident.”

Indeed, Feinstein has mastered the art of constructing images that are simultaneously pleasing and unsettling. Her subjects’ faces are often partially or completely obscured. Only one of the ten images in the show provides an unobscured view of the subject’s face. Instead, Feinstein’s women are represented as segments of a human being: stockinged legs, gloved hands, or heeled feet. In this way, Feinstein transforms female bodies into static objects for viewing. Thus, her subjects are more akin to costumed mannequins than human women, decorating scenes of midcentury domesticity like carefully constructed set pieces.

Sometimes Feinstein excludes figures entirely and replaces them with literal objects. In the titular piece Meat On Her Bones (2022), the artist assembles a still life of seemingly disparate elements: a broken mirror, a single pearl earring, locks of hair, dried roses, and burning candle stubs. At the center stands a meticulously cooked and displayed hunk of meat with a serving knife stabbed into it. Here, Feinstein highlights the importance of labor and consumption in perpetuating traditional gender roles. Women are expected to produce an image for male consumption, just like homemakers are expected to make dinner for their husbands. In turn, women become an amalgamation of the objects they produce and consume. The serving knife also reminds us of how objectification can easily turn violent when women are treated as little more than hunks of meat to eat up.

Likewise, Feinstein confronts the enduring power of rape culture and victim-blaming with Well Look at What She Was Wearing (2023). Three vintage dresses hang neatly in a row: two white and one red. The dresses are suspended in an overgrown field at twilight, their owners inexplicably missing from the picture. With its unnatural lighting and inharmonious elements, the image feels eerily reminiscent of a crime scene photograph. Like a piece of evidence, the red dress hangs alone in the gallery, leaving us to wonder what might have happened to its wearer. Feinstein augments the fear and morbid curiosity evoked by the image with the title and its widespread use to shame victims of sexual assault.

Feinstein’s social advocacy extends beyond her artistic practice. Throughout the exhibition, she has collected donations for WomanSafe Inc., The Green House, a regional emergency shelter and resource center for domestic violence survivors. Feinstein encourages visitors to collect in-demand items such as cleaning and hygienic supplies, household goods, infant care items, and clothing and donate them via the large collection bins at the front of the gallery. Like assemblages, these collection bins have become works of art in their own right. These mundane objects demonstrate the potential compassionate acts have to combat systems of oppression. Ultimately, audiences leave motivated to transform their hurt, fear, and shame into positive social change, not submit to the patriarchal status quo.

Meat On Her Bones will be open at Waterloo Arts through September 21st during regular gallery hours. For more information, visit https://waterlooarts.org/rachel-feinstein-meat-on-her-bones-aug-2-sept-21/ or email gallery@waterlooarts.org.