'The figures in my work know they are being objectified by the viewer. I’m interested in the cultural meanings and values that are attributed to each body type. Each body is read like a cultural artifact, its meaning derived from its shape, color, and size, seen through the lens of the culture by which it is viewed. The figures are fit into the roles that society has ascribed to people with those body types. They are categorized and stereotyped by their race, their gender, their class, their age, the shape of their bodies… Yet they stare back at the viewer, knowing that they are being looked at and objectified, and like Olympia, they refuse to be victims in the exchange. It is this tension that much of my work relies on.

My works seeks out that grey area between two categories; between representation and exploitation; between equality and inequality; between sameness and difference; between truth and assumption. I make use of art historical references, media images, and visual puns, transposing one on top of the next, forcing the viewer to unravel their own assumptions and prejudices about the figures in my work.'  Joe Levickas

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