All She Wants for Christmas

Xicanx artist Suzy González challenges the objectification of women within a capitalist society. Referencing the style of feminist American Pop artist Rosalyn Drexler, González sets her “woman” against a flat field of color to focus on the collaged elements that comprise her central figure. The character is anonymous, with only an assortment of presumed feminine children’s toys, such as dolls, cupcakes, and kitchen sets, depicted upon her body. As a child, the artist received a Barbie doll from her grandmother every Christmas, but the doll’s promotion of societal expectations of thinness and whiteness troubled her. The central woman in All She Wants for Christmas represents her frustrations with materialistic society, confronting the repeated promotion of material goals and unattainable body ideals, as well as the disturbing narratives that children’s toys inscribe on impressionable youth. 

González embraces the “Xicanx” spelling derived from the original politically charged term, “Chicano,” to acknowledge that civil rights movement, to embrace trans and nonbinary identities, and to align with the Nahuatl Indigenous language. With this identity, González promotes her work as part of an ongoing effort to support social justice with the goal of defining a radical consciousness and dismantling social hierarchies.