toska!! is a collection of six large scale illustrations that reimagine historic pieces of art that cast women who have endured in traditionally objectified gazes: Ophelia by John Everett Millais, Venus & The Lute Player by Titian, The Reluctant Bride by Auguste Toulmouche, A Bar at the Folies-Legere by Édouard Manet, Lucretia by Rembrandt, Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean-León Gérôme. This series is not to say I have the definitive answer on how these pieces should be handled, but these are my definitive versions. The pieces of toska!! are all visually dense, and maximalist in approach. Every detail means something to solidify the notion that the figures within are not just the symbolic figures that they’re historically aligned with; they also have a life outside of these moments. Historically, these figures have not been given the grace and nuance we now see as necessary when acknowledging survivors; I aim to change that. Reclamation and adaptability are important themes within my work, along with depicting women in a way that feels non-exploitative; and my own experience in healing has definitely informed the way I’ve traversed these themes. The physical dimensions of these works are intentionally built to feel more compressed and claustrophobic, as if everything has been designed to live in one plane, pushing the artifice of traditional gaze on women’s bodies. Everything is happening all at once. It became important that every aspect of these pieces is inherently mine: from the designed frames, to the smallest handlings and details or mixed media applications, to the written voice and verbiage that engages with the audience. As a companion to these larger-form illustrations, there are six accompanying zines that are reflective of personal experiences or research based content. Specifically, the research based content meditates on similar behaviors around the tropes inherent in the discourse of women in art & culture and how they relate to the pieces I’ve chosen to reimagine. Represented in this run of sister zines are manic pixie dream girls, damsels in distress, Law & Order SVU, my five years (and counting) of bartending, bridal pressures, and femme fatales; all in a range of tone and execution. They are all black and white illustrations on varied color stock, as I want these to be pieces that can be readily made and distributed, something that is unobtainable for the multimedia, gallery-facing works I’ve created for this project. Their content is, to me, more important than their permanence; the guts are more of a living document of my standing in these topics and understanding of the perpetuation of these narratives. Ultimately, this thesis body functions as a stamp of where I am, what I see, and how I am able to process and place it in the world. This series is the most true-to-self collection of art I’ve undertaken, and facilitating different ways of accessing it was integral to how I went about creating it. I have made these works for me, firstmost, but they must also live on their own, and toska!! does so with a created sisterhood and world of ephemera. Website: https://www.michaylagrbich.comInstagram: @msgincluded Categories MFA Thesis 2025 Michayla Grbich Published on April 29, 2025