I have explored various artistic mediums, including soft sculpture, drawing, collage, and mixed media, allowing me to transcend my physical self and exert control over something larger than myself. Thematically, my work revolves around the physical body and its impact on personal narrative, encompassing gender expression, sexuality, and the vulnerability associated with a loss of mental and physical control. Yayoi Kusama, particularly her Compulsion Furniture series, serves as a significant inspiration. I am intrigued by how she confronts fears, such as an aversion to sex, using exposure to subvert discomfort. In homage to Kusama, I employ a similar method of exposure and discomfort to step beyond my own body and scrutinize something beyond myself through physical form and vulnerability.
One manifestation of this exploration is my soft sculpture, a life-sized sex doll titled "What Are You Looking At?". Intertwining crochet elements, the piece becomes a canvas for delving into the concept of gaze, specifically the male gaze and its impact on self-perception. This creation features visible and surrealistic crocheted breasts and a vagina, symbolizing physical vulnerability and expressing the disconnection between the physical being and the mind. It explores the fear of being sexualized and the distress of not being perceived as desired, revealing one's lack of control over one's image and the idealization that may accompany it.
Starting with a crocheted bra and panty set in beige yarn, I attached 3D crocheted boobs and a vulva, challenging societal notions surrounding nudity to delve deeper into its meaning. The doll is strategically placed in an empty corner, sitting with legs out and arms to the side, rendering it unnoticeable and belittled. This deliberate positioning plays with the literal meaning of display, emphasizing discomfort and unwanted visibility. The awkwardness of its position and inhuman-like features aim to unsettle the audience, challenging viewers to persist in looking even when "being looked back at."
In my series, “Pornified Prophesies,” I drew and printed three different major arcana tarot cards: The Lovers, The High Priestess, and The Magician, using imagery and figures taken from vintage pornographic magazines. The project seeks to explore the relationship between sexuality, power, and spirituality and how these themes are influenced by popular culture and the media. By using porn stars as the reference point for the characters in the tarot cards, the project seeks to comment on the commodification of sexuality and the objectification of women in popular culture. Using traditional and digital media and incorporating porn stars as reference points create a visually compelling and thought-provoking body of work that engages with complex and timely themes.
The act of searching for pornography and the practice of engaging with tarot cards share an intriguing parallel in the realm of choice and chance. In both instances, there exists a process of sifting through a much larger group or batch in pursuit of something personally meaningful. When one searches for explicit content, the vast array of options mirrors the diversity found in a tarot deck. The element of chance plays a crucial role in both scenarios; you navigate through an unpredictable assortment, uncertain of what you will encounter. The selection process, whether it involves clicking through online content or drawing a tarot card, introduces an element of randomness. Much like the tarot, where each card holds symbolic significance, in the search for pornography, one may assign personal meaning to the chosen content, creating a unique and subjective experience. Both acts involve navigating through uncertainty, selecting something from a larger pool, and attributing individual significance to the chosen element, thus intertwining choice, chance, and the quest for personal meaning. The chance encounter becomes a reflection of life's unpredictability, and the act of interpreting the meaning derived from the randomly chosen content or card parallels the way we navigate the uncertainties in our everyday lives. It underscores the human tendency to find meaning and personal connection even in the seemingly arbitrary aspects of our experiences.
I've sought to transcend the confines of my own body, gaining physical control over something larger than myself. My thematic focus delves into the complexities of the physical body, influencing personal narratives encompassing gender expression, sexuality, and the vulnerability that arises from a loss of mental and physical control. With time, sexual relations become valued over actual human complexity. Bodies have become reduced to simplified figures that are represented by their relations to others and, overall, are seen as non-existent in and of themselves. Are some characteristics of bodies inherently seen as attractive or not? Or, because we see everything through the eyes of culture, is it almost impossible for us to see bodies objectively?