50cal Femme by Kristina Bivona

Kristina Bivona is a woman who finally adopted her mother’s maiden name. Her mother was a good woman who never left but probably should have. Kristina is the eldest of three girls who always saved the generic USDA canned pork until the end of the month. She prefers using dollar store lotion for her stencil-prints and it weeps when left on the wall.

She confronts a society that has no problem objectifying women but criminalizes women who profit from their objectification. She examines these power dynamics from the perspective of the female body which knows a white woman can exist simultaneously complicit and resistant to acts of violence.

She has worked with her hands since childhood and has applied her body in a variety of ways. This includes but is not limited to: pro domme-work, scholarship, riding freight, squatting, mothering, politics, and art.

Through language, text and materials, she manipulates issues of sex-work, feminism, modernism, activism and counterculture. Bivona brings the essence of punk to fine art, pushed there by inhospitable environments of racism, classism, and sexism. Her art is a form of resistance, always exposing and breaking down obstacles created by harmful social norms.

Kristina Bivona Doctoral Fellow of Curation Teachers College at Columbia University

www.KristinaBivona.com