Emerging Michigan talent, Erica Podwoiski, tackles the pressures of growing up in an environment filled with fairy tales, media and advertising in her exhibit, Coming of Age in an Era of Celebrity Worship at Lido Gallery and Gifts, at 33535 Woodward Ave., through Jan. 30.

The exhibit uses a variety of media, from oil paint, egg tempera, etching, to encaustic. Her work has been featured on the cover of Alive Magazine and was recently shown at the historic Belle Isle Conservatory in Detroit.

"I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil and my parents were very encouraging from the beginning," Podwoiski said, who is 22-years-old.  "My decision to be an artist was a no-brainer, it's what I love to do and I can't see myself doing anything else."

Some of her pieces at the Lido Gallery are  influenced by her childhood in Garden City, Mich. were she was born and raised. She  currently works as a jewelry sales associate at Macy's. Podwoiski paints in her spare time and plans to return to school for a Master of Fine Arts degree.

“I liked the idea she had a narrative for her exhibit,” said Diane DeCillis, owner of the Lido Gallery. “It’s very current and I really love her technical skills. She’s come into my gallery when she was much younger and showed an interest in art. I’ve watched her grow. I thought she was ready for a one-woman show.”

DeCillis, who opened the gallery in 1979, thinks the way Podwoiski captured the transition of getting older is poignant and interesting. In See Emily Play and See Emily Play II, Powoiski paints her sister against the door of a bedroom covered in tapped-up pictures of celebrities.

“(See Emily Play) was done a year ago,” said DeCillis. “(See Emily Play II) was done a year later. It’s the same girl, and you can see the maturity in the (artistic) style and in the girl (Emily).”

Part of the exhibit includes Bling for Boobs, Victoria’s Secret Fantasy Bras embellished by Podwoiski, ranging from cone bras to size double D. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the bras will be donated to METAvivor, an organization that supports research for Stage-four breast cancer.

“We had quite a few people come to the opening,” DeCillis said. “We have had students come in and people just interested in seeing a show. (The traffic) is pretty good.”

The exhibit is a culmination of Podwoiski's four years at the Columbus College of Art and Design, where she was valedictorian of her class 2010. Her subject matter for this exhibit was inspired by a literary class she took on fairy tales, and John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” an essay on how women are depicted in art and advertising.

“(It was a) class with a feminist perspective,” Podwoiski said. “Fairy tales demonize active intelligent women and it opened my eyes to stereotypes. It led to my interest in girl culture.”

Pieces from her first solo exhibit, pc4pc<333333, a visual case study of females on MySpace and Facebook, are also included in the exhibit at the Lido Gallery. One piece, Staring Contest, is a Podwoiski’s self-portrait she took on her webcam. She used the shadows from her venetian blinds to create visual effect.

“(In Staring Contest), I wanted the stare to be one-sided,” Podwoiski said. “It’s about feeling you have to look perfect. A woman sees herself being looked at and when she poses, (she thinks) this is how a man wants me to look.”

Podwoiski has humorously captured how media and advertising encourage girls at a younger age to work to be sexy. In Water Balloon Babes, young girls wearing bathing suits pose and stuff their chests with water balloons.

“I felt a different kind of pressure,” said Decillis, who did not grow up with MySpace or Facebook. “It was more internal. This seems more external. I didn’t have an audience for my pressure the way some girls do now.”

Lido Gallery’s next exhibit, French in February, will show vintage French billboard posters. It will run from  Feb. 1 to Feb.28.

All of Podwoiski's pieces from the exhibit are up for sale. Contact Lido Gallery for inquiries, pricing on a particular piece, or commission work relating to Podwoiski.