“From her Good Girl Poster project of the 1990’s to her work with Beauty Pageants and with iconic paintings of women from the Western Art Cannon, Pam Butler’s work has focused on the female and the visual vocabulary use to enforce a female’s expected place in the social order. Her new project "Who’s The Prettiest of All” contrasts female imagery with masculine stereotypes and masculine social myths. In this pairing she explores how the arch of gendered stereotypes and norms serve as a defining and controlling mechanism of the overall culture. This project began its exploration of male stereotypes with portraits of the 45 American President (all male to date).
‘Who’s The Prettiest of All’ works with these portraits of the presidents as the counter to imagery in her “The Miss America Pageant” series which depicts contestants from that pageant circuit. This book, “Presidents and Beauty Queens,” takes scans of her drawings and watercolors of both the contestants and the presidents and mixes them with found imagery to develop a biting commentary on power and sexuality in contemporary culture.“
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