My name is Kenna and I am a fat activist and portrait artist based in Portland, OR. My art revolves around women’s relationships to our bodies, healing the connection to our physical being and celebrating our beauty at every size.

I started painting during the quarantine in 2020, when my own relationship to my body began to deteriorate in response to the rise of body negative content on social media as we all wrestled with the realities of spending our days isolated at home. My art started as large scale chalk drawings that I would plaster all over my house- colorful, voluptuous bodies that looked like mine and helped ground me in self-love as our society fell into fear of our newly changing bodies. As I started transitioning to painting, I began posting my paintings on social media. The response from my community, especially those who were assigned female at birth, was overwhelmingly positive. Just as it had been for me, the experience of seeing positive depictions of fat bodies in fine art was moving for those who had never seen themselves represented as anything but a “before” image.

Eventually, I was asked to create a painting with a loved-one who had survived a traumatic assault that resulted in her feeling isolated from her body. Together, we created a painting that represented her body as she wanted to connect to it; a vessel of strength and love for those around her. It was a monument to the body that had helped her overcome adversity, raised her children, and continued to carry her through the world with dignity and kindness. The response to this painting was overwhelming and other survivors of traumatic body experiences began to ask for similar paintings of themselves, images that would serve as reminders that their bodies belong to them, that they are beautiful and worth celebration as they are.

I am honored to now work as a portrait artist who helps people reclaim their bodies, be it from a specific trauma or from the trauma of living in a society that villainizes fatness. Fat bodies, mature bodies, disabled bodies, all bodies that break the mold of societal expectation, are worthy of art that celebrates and honors their inherent beauty. I hope that you enjoy the art that we have been able to create together and that it helps you see the beauty in your own body.