Madbutt

Title: ‘Normes de Beauté’ by Madbutt

Medium: French magazines from 1940 to 1950 on black, Keaykolour Original Parchment 250gsm

Bio: Madelaine Buttini is an internationally recognised visual artist. Since 2015, she has been exploring hand cut and digital collage art. Her artwork infuses a vintage and modern feel with functionality for both commercial and private use. From London to Los Angeles, Madelaine has shown her artwork in exhibitions and music festivals around the globe, most notably in New York and throughout the East Coast of Australia. She aspires to bring a moment of happiness and hope from her artwork, especially for those who feel lost and alone within our busy and sometimes overwhelming lives. Her work reflects upon the challenges she has faced as a friend, girlfriend and feminist whilst also celebrating femininity and flora.

Artist Statement: We live in a perpetual state of excessive vanity. We buy creams for cellulite that don’t work. Women are getting sick from breast implants that leak toxins. The expectations to have these cookie cutter bodies has gotten out of control. The desire to be perfect has lead to greed. “Cosmetic Cowboys” are doing complicated invasive surgeries on people in office spaces around Australia. They feed on the insecurities that are manmade. This is not what self care is. Social media’s expectations of us to be online for up to twelve hours a day is detrimental to our continually declining mental health. We scroll through these apps and all we see is filtered people; nothing is real anymore. This year I got lip fillers because I thought it would make me feel better about the chaos in my life, but it increased my insecurities and that money would have been better spent in therapy.When I was creating this artwork, I was looking at magazines from the 1940s to 1950s. While flicking through I saw these advertisements and thought to myself, “This was the beginning of the end.” Are we in too deep for change?

Size: 29.7cm (w) x 42cm (h) x 0.5 cm (d)