My practice-based research in the visual arts is focused on the intersection between three moments: the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white-skinned, straight-nosed, and symmetrical face as a look of choice evidenced in Western media which can be described as a type of personal eugenics; the antecedents to this look of choice informed by the racist ideology of Herrenvolk; and a trajectory from Herrenvolk to the informing template of Albrecht Durer's Draughtsman Drawing a Reclining Nude as well as the drawings he produced of the body in Theory of Proportions (1528). The paper illustrates how practice-based research can lead a researcher in unexpected ways and towards surprising discoveries.
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