WORKSHEET
BEAUTY IS SKIN DEEP
Lorna Simpson, Senga Nengudi, and John Coplans’s works challenge the traditional
conventions of beauty.
Consider. What qualities does contemporary society consider beautiful today? How
are the standards of beauty different for men and for women? What do you and your
peers do to conform with or rebel against these standards? How do you receive
messages about what is considered beautiful?
Create. Often the media influences our standards of beauty and fashion. Collect
images of beauty in magazines, advertisements, newspapers, and on the web. On a
large sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle. On the left side, paste images
that conform to typical standards of beauty. On the right side, paste images that defy
these standards. How many images did you find for the left side? How many did you
find for the right side?