the venus cycle

Cast Paper Sculptures
2008–2013

The Venus Cycle explores the reality of the older woman’s body, un-idealized and imprinted with life’s experiences, Society’s emphasis on female beauty as youthful and slender belies what women see when they look in the mirror and discounts the grace and strength of older women’s bodies. With a brazen acceptance, Grabel normalizes the changing seasons of the female form.

Using proliferation of forms, Grabel demonstrates the power in unity as the aging female body is unleashed, reemerging from the constraints of societal perception. She uses color and the layering of fragments to exemplify the beauty and grace of the form as an organic shape, an expression of nature.