This thesis examines how my painting and general studio practice functions as a method of research that challenges dominant narratives and offers alternative ways of seeing, remembering, and inhabitation in contemporary art. It is a culmination of my entire MFA practice, a visual and physical representation of research, experimenting and exploring, failures and successes, and above all, enjoyment in the last two years. The idea of an ideal body type is a social construct, shaped by culture, social expectation, and commercial interests, and they change across time and place. My work, The Mask series, begins from this understanding and from the experiences of a close family member and interviews with students from Cornell University. In these works, I explore body dysmorphia, body shaming, and the emotional weight of being seen through the expectations of others. I am interested in how African and big-bodied figures have been represented, judged, celebrated, and controlled across different historical moments. Rather than treating the body as a stable form, I take it as a site of tension, memory, and negotiation. My studio process is central to this inquiry. Using plaster, paste, paint sticks, and acrylic, alongside techniques drawn from printmaking and body casting, I work with layered and textured surfaces that suggest both concealment and revelation. The images in the works draw from archival photographs, personal photos, and cultural references, including images of contemporary Igbo women at their annual August Meetings and historical material connected to the fattening-room practices of the Efik in Eastern Nigeria, where big body is celebrated. I also took body casts from volunteers, members of the university community. By reworking these references, I question how inherited and conventional ideas about femininity, continue to shape the contemporary perceptions of beauty and belonging, while also insisting on the dignity, and presence of bodies that exceed narrow definitions of beauty.