Lainey Molnar, a 31-year-old digital business strategist from Hungary, is creating a stir on social media with her drawings that depict women beautifully and realistically.
In fact, the latter is the theme of her work, which shows women with their struggles and failings, something rare in media.
From make-up to mental health, clothes to never-ending expectations of the society, her drawings cover all topics and hit close to home.
In an interview given to Bored Panda, Molnar explains the thought process behind her art.
It is incredibly hard to navigate all of their expectations and reach the milestones society has set out for us, like maintaining the perfect size and shape, being maternal but also ambitious, strong but also sensitive, staying youthful and fresh while gracefully accepting the aging process, looking ideal but not overdoing plastic surgery. I could go on and on and on, and we are all so tired of this.
Truly, we are tired of being chained like this, and Molna’s work serves as a clue to where we need to head as a society.
Molna has been working as a blogger and a writer for years, but she took a step back from the former, owing to increasing online harassment. However, the lockdown changed it all. She found motivation to draw again, and thank God for that.
I decided to create a comic-style avatar for myself and started posting drawings about her to process what I’m going through (or all of us go through) as a woman under the pressure of society and just simply… life.
What stands out in Molna’s work no-judgment approach. She thinks a woman should be able to make life choices for herself without being told what is right and what is wrong. Also, without the added pressure of ‘you should have done this by now’. Who made these rules again?
At the end of the day, they don’t hurt anyone. Going against the grain when it comes to societal standards and still being happy and content can take away the sense of control from people who align with these standards and I believe that’s why they’re judging, because suddenly their system isn’t foolproof and that can be scary.
