Chloe Allred

Chloe Allred Artist Statement

There have been so many ways in my life that I have been afraid of taking up space.

When I was eleven, I developed anorexia. Time transformed itself: I went from a kid that would roll in the grass, stick her feet into the sky and imagine what it would be like to walk in the clouds—to a kid that was tracking every single incoming calorie. I obsessed and tracked my body. I hated the way my stomach looked on an out-breath. I tried to make my breath as shallow as possible, to take up as little space as possible.

When I was twenty-one my then best-friend sided with my rapist. A person that had made me feel so seen before now looked through me in the hallways of our school. She looked through me like I wasn’t there. Like I was a ghost.

There are many times in my life where I felt I shouldn’t take up space. I shouldn’t breathe out all the way and show my body at its fullest. I shouldn’t speak uncomfortable truths or hold those that have violated me accountable. I have learned to interrogate the “shouldn’ts”. Art-making has been my refuge. In my artistic practice I have given myself the space to breathe, and to breathe out all the way. The heart of my work is this: I see you. In my paintings I want the people I love to take up space. I want the difficult emotions to take up space too. I want to show that beauty, love, loss, grief, regret, happiness, sadness—that all of these emotions live side by side in our complicated selves.

Watch Chloe talk about her art and her practice.