Carly Naughton is a researched based, mixed-media artist and disability scholar living in Portland, OR. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College in 2017 and a MFA in Visual Studies / MA in Critical Studies from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2021. Her academic interests include crip theory, critical disability studies, mad studies, medical history, queer theory, fat studies, reproductive justice, and eugenic movements in the United States. Artistically, Carly is attracted to things that look like other things which capture associations and contradictions between materials, images, and affect. She aims to complicate notions of invisible illness by disrupting the compulsory performance of wellness by creating works about the body, her body, and the connotations tethered to it. Working between disciplines, Carly is attracted to a hodge-podge of materials including fabrics (satin, tulle, and chiffon), mundane household materials (candle wax, vaseline, and panty hose), craft materials (glitter, felt, and hot glue), and found objects (medical books, pill bottles, and latex gloves). Her color palette is largely drawn from her own body: beiges, pinks, reds, whites, and blacks. She is fascinated by bodily fluids, medical photography and illustrations, the history of psychiatry, the sticky, and the fluid. Carly’s work aims to embody unresolved tensions between disability/ability, public/private, sickness/wellness, sexuality/disgust, spirituality/corperality, privilege/oppression and embodiment/disembodiment. The visceral imagery of her work contrasts with both the mundane objects and so-called “feminine” fabrics comprising it creating a simultaneous familiariarity and discomfort. By creating somewhat obtrusive pieces, Carly challenges compulsory able-bodiedness through excessive displays of dysfunction.