Crystal Araiza is a MassArt graduate based in Boston. Using a variety of media including gouache, cut paper, ink, she tries to focus on the “secret self” in her work. She tackles controversial and ignored aspects of the feminine identity. Araiza views the fraught territories of motherhood, childbirth, sexuality, and raw emotion through a critical and almost militantly neutral lense, refusing to shy away from the real experience of these topics neither abhorring nor glorifying them. Her blunt sense of humor, pastel pallet, and stark line work render the reality of family, feminity, and sexuality in darkly comedic scene. She illustrates the real via extreme exaggeration and critical construction augmented by an irreverent and seemingly juvenile sense of humor.