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I still cannot imagine a world without Barbie. As a child, I built her a never-ending Dream House, adding a room every time I bought a new set of pink, plastic furniture. Her frilly, pastel existence once happily enveloped me, so I was shocked one day, at age twenty-three, to find out I was too embarrassed to apply lipstick in a public restroom. I ended up doing it in the stall, mirror in hand, frustrated that my girlish tendencies now felt socially unacceptable. Barbie was my vision of what a grown-up woman got to look like, a vision completely at odds with my grown-up reality. Now, on my way to work every day, I blend into the sea of cold, stony, black-suited, New York women who storm the sidewalk.

What happened to lace, hoop skirts, and ringlets of hair? I cannot think of a time in history when women looked so un-pretty as today. My frustration drove me to build the "Machines for Women," a series of four interactive, mechanical sculptures which show my struggle against a society that limits my feminine expression. In each piece, the participant can only partially experience the female elements, like the tiaras and strawberries, which are restrained in movement by motors and a grid of heavy steel. The women using the machines are limited in the amount of time they can smell a rose, for example, or in the quantity of strawberries they can eat. The machines further reveal that this kind of restraint results in my sense of a lost sexual identity. If I cannot fully express myself as the feminine woman I want to be, how can I feel completely attractive to the opposite sex? This feeling is manifested well in the "Twinkling Light Bed," where the machine lifts the pretty, pink world high out of reach and with it go the bed and flashing porn house-style lights.

Surprisingly, the machines do not appear as rigid and severe as I once thought. They are actually quite delicate and look to me like grand stages for the performance of the same pretty, girlish things I thought they had crushed entirely. In spite of the restrictions placed upon it, the feminine world ultimately asserts itself.

ABBY PERVIL
320 Lexington Ave., #3C
New York, NY 10016
h: (212) 725-6695 w: (212) 708-9540

Born on April 18, 1973 in St. Louis, Missouri

Education	School of Visual Arts, School of Continuing Education, New York, NY Sculpture classes for six semesters, January 1996-May 1998 Computer art class, Fall 1998 The Sculpture Center, New York, NY Metal Workshop, June-September 1997 Yale College, New Haven, CT B.A. Art, May 1995, GPA 3.70 Honors: Phi Beta Kappa Magna Cum Laude Distinction in Art Ladue Horton Watkins High School, St. Louis, MO Diploma, June 1991, GPA 4.0
Exhibitions	The Bronx Museum, Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) 1998-99, Bronx, NY, Summer 1999 Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT Senior Thesis Exhibition, May 1995 Freshmen Drawing Exhibition, May 1992, received honors St. Louis Artistsą Guild, St. Louis, MO, June 1995 Juried Exhibition, Honorable Mention
Publications	The Bronx Museum, Artist in the Market Place 1998-99, exhibition catalog, Bronx, NY, 1999
Awards / Honors	The Bronx Museum AIM Program, Bronx, NY, Fall 1998 Selected to participate in a 12-week artist education seminar
Work Experience	Executive Secretary, The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Architecture and Design, New York, NY, June 1996-present Research Associate, Urbanomics, economic consulting firm, New York, NY, June 1996-present
Sculpture Skills	Arc welding, oxy-acetylene welding, and various shop skills
Computer Art Skills	Photoshop, Illustrator, and Quark