Audrey Todd
My passion for creating has been a guide throughout my life. Currently it has landed me in San Francisco where I’ve had the privilege of studying design and fine arts at USF. Within my fine arts practice I love learning and mastering new mediums — from painting to printmaking to sculpture — giving me a wide range of outlets for creative expression that I can bring to all of the work I do as an artist and designer. During my time at USF I have created a body of work with an emphasis on exploration of the body, nostalgia, innocence, and femininity.
Teeth
At its core, Teeth questions why female weakness is so insisted upon in western society. The silver hand-cast metal mouthpiece modeled after the jaws of a lioness serves as a conceptual response to this question, visualizing how the female power recognized amongst other species can be reclaimed and embodied by humans.
The idea first came to me as an imaginative alternative to brass knuckles, “for women,” in the form of a metal mouthpiece modeled after the teeth of a female predator. Upon my immediate research into this idea I was surprised to learn that lions follow a matriarchal power structure, meaning their society is female led. Up until that point I knew lions to be the, “kings,” of the jungle. It was clear to me just how much the male dominates the female in all aspects of western popular culture and media. This helped me to hone in on lioness research, especially for the form of the teeth. With my hand-cast metal mouthpiece I aim to materialize a form of strength that has been historically ignored in the human female species. My accompanying publication provides a visual display intertwining these ideas of self defense and powerful animal matriarchies. Together, these elements investigate how power is biologically present yet socially denied to women; they are a manifestation of how design can aid in the reclamation of ferocity rather than fragility.