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Showing posts with label pornography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pornography. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Bad art..... Guilty!
I've just had the funniest hour of my life. Regretsy is genius, there's no denying it
And.... I'm on it. Oh yes I am. A few posts down in the art section. I don't have a photo of the painting so I can't even prove it.
When I'd seen regretsy before I'd actually wondered i they'd come across this most hideous article and they did. I didn't even bother disguising my contempt for it in the description.
It was a year ago, I'd had a really frustrating conversation with someone who told me I was never going to be successful until I started painting big pictures of cocks. Monumental cock pictures were where it's at, apparently. It was just after erotica 09 and I was really fed up with feeling that I had to appear sexually available to sell my work.
As it happens, I am sexually available but not to just anyone! I had one guy on facebook who just wouldn't leave it. No matter how polite I was he was articulate but really offensive and wouldn't accept that I wasn't interested in him and didn't want to answer any more of his questions. at the same time I was trying to extricate myself from a doomed relationship and part of me just thought I should almost shed my skin, start again, leave the art behind.
Somewhere in my back catalogue I had a photo that had been taken for a laugh and I committed facebook suicide. I painted it on a blank canvas in 45 minutes and posted it up in art groups. The caption said something like "I've had enough, I'm committing facebook suicide- do your worst, report me!"
And they did.
And I bounced back with a better plan and now I don't get the amount of grief I used to. I got my marketing all wrong at the start.
And I still don't like painting men.
It goes back to what I was saying yesterday about what people find erotic. That's just why I did it, it's hilarious!
If I did I'd get myself on as a regretsy regular. I don't know if it's because I've got a funny sense of humour but I love my spot on there. And it sold my revolting painting! And I bought some wine.
Cheers! :D
And.... I'm on it. Oh yes I am. A few posts down in the art section. I don't have a photo of the painting so I can't even prove it.
When I'd seen regretsy before I'd actually wondered i they'd come across this most hideous article and they did. I didn't even bother disguising my contempt for it in the description.
It was a year ago, I'd had a really frustrating conversation with someone who told me I was never going to be successful until I started painting big pictures of cocks. Monumental cock pictures were where it's at, apparently. It was just after erotica 09 and I was really fed up with feeling that I had to appear sexually available to sell my work.
As it happens, I am sexually available but not to just anyone! I had one guy on facebook who just wouldn't leave it. No matter how polite I was he was articulate but really offensive and wouldn't accept that I wasn't interested in him and didn't want to answer any more of his questions. at the same time I was trying to extricate myself from a doomed relationship and part of me just thought I should almost shed my skin, start again, leave the art behind.
Somewhere in my back catalogue I had a photo that had been taken for a laugh and I committed facebook suicide. I painted it on a blank canvas in 45 minutes and posted it up in art groups. The caption said something like "I've had enough, I'm committing facebook suicide- do your worst, report me!"
And they did.
And I bounced back with a better plan and now I don't get the amount of grief I used to. I got my marketing all wrong at the start.
And I still don't like painting men.
It goes back to what I was saying yesterday about what people find erotic. That's just why I did it, it's hilarious!
If I did I'd get myself on as a regretsy regular. I don't know if it's because I've got a funny sense of humour but I love my spot on there. And it sold my revolting painting! And I bought some wine.
Cheers! :D
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Looking at dirty pictures
I don't use other photographers' work or copy other painters but sometimes when I'm working I think I need to change something, it's usually a facial expression or maybe the hands aren't quite right. At those times I put in an image search and I get lost for hours. It's something I tend to do really early in the morning. And I never keep to my brief. One erotic photography site leads to another, sex blogs, sites for women, sites for men, adult forums.Sometimes I see things I wish I hadn't. I'm amazed the spectrum of sexual preferences out there. How UN"erotic" are some of the things which turn people on. We're a truly astonishing species. I'd love to elaborate- but I'll spare you the details...
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Sex, lies and illusions
[caption id="attachment_142" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="http://www.etsy.com/listing/56024574/original-oil-painting-erotic-art"]
[/caption]
People do ask me what my work is really about, but sometimes they're better off not knowing. These paintings are about me, they're about people I know and mostly about the dark peculiarities of the human condition and sexuality. They're about the theatre of sex, the performances people put on and the lies behind the act.
People do remark that they're obviously painted by a woman, and I know that's true. Men painting these things are often as happy with the illusion as the viewer. Again I must clarify, this is not an anti male rant, in the private world of sex there's equal responsibility, the games are part of the fun and eroticism can be the antithesis of honesty.
It occurred to me while I was reading eroticism and art by Alyce Mahon that the position I find myself in has interesting echoes in art history. She recalls the paintings of Ingres (1780-1867) and his contemporaries who pandered to a fantasy ideal of a world in which women were sexually available and libidinous, and more importantly a world which wasn't readily checkable for factual accuracy. If they were portraying women in Wales, people would have just gone to have a look and returned deflated and disillusioned.
There was a recent resurgence in the popularity of orientalist art. The Tate hels an exhibition in 2008 "british orientalist painting" One of the featured paintings is by a female artist also working under a pseudonym. Henriette Browning's "harem interior" caused some consternation. Alyce Mahon mentions that in 1861 Olivier Merson complained that Browning's paintings showed "silent and bored women... chaste in the muslin of their long dresses" and that "these paintings somewhat disrupt our dreams of the orient"
Shame. The interesting thing is that in this description of the reaction to the disappointing reality that people are basically the same the world over I am reminded of my own experience and that now it's the west which has the capacity to disrupt dreams currently very active in the orient. The most casually offensive messages I get are from the middle east. This isn't because men there are fundamentally any different. It's just that they're believing the advertising of the western porn industry and lack the ability to come and check. There are more than enough men in this country who believe that women on the internet are from a strange and wonderful world where girls just desperately want to see badly taken mobile phone shots of nondescript body parts. (I know I go on about that a lot- but I get many less photos in my inbox these days so I just thought I'd throw it out there again and repel a few more.)
My work focuses on these illusions. The large scale ones I've already mentioned. And the smaller ones. The reality of being alienated or connected and the ways sexuality is used in honesty and in lies. My paintings are often lit as if they show a stage performance. Sometimes the subjects are confrontational and direct. Sometimes they're anonymous and turned away, but still aware of the viewer. Sometimes people are more honest in sex than in life, sometimes the opposite. Sometimes people will engage in levels of intimacy in the bedroom but will be unable to communicate with their clothes on. Sometimes women will put on the sexual performance of a lifetime and not see it as absurd that they can't ask their sex partner if they're in an exclusive relationship. Sometimes men are tender and sweet in the bedroom in a way you just wouldn't recognise if you saw them in a pub with their mates. It's a different world, a mystery. And the reality of it can be uncomfortable. The reason my work is "obviously done by a woman" is that I talk about these things with my friends and I'm always amazed by the illusions we weave. A question I'm often asked by men is why women seem so much more sexually experimental at the start of a relationship and suddenly the more exciting and forbidden acts are birthday treats. That's a common thing to happen. It's part of the game for many people.
I'm fascinated by the dissonance which sex causes in the power balance of relationships. How far women will go to convince themselves their man is different to those others and doesn't look at girls while strangely feeling the need to check their every move by some fairly extreme cyberstalking. It takes some effort to achieve something erotic within the constraints of modern life, insecurity and domestic normality.
But there's a double bluff in my work, it's deliberately staged, but there's an underlying truth. It actually depicts what women are when there's no men around at all. It's aware of the eventual viewer but it's not contrived to deceive. Some of my best paintings are of phoos taken in moments just before massive laughing fits. Because in my experience with every single one of my models is that girls left alone just don't take themselves all that seriously. And that's why my paintings look obviously done by a woman. Men just don't really know what that world is like because it changes when a (straight) man is present. It's a world as remote to the viewer as Ingres' turkish bath, but it does exist. It's a lot more real in essence than the art copied from pornography or glamour shoots by male photographers, that's for sure. It's just different, that's all. I'm a girl painting girls, because that's what I know and understand.
Ok maybe "understand" was taking it too far ;)
[/caption]People do ask me what my work is really about, but sometimes they're better off not knowing. These paintings are about me, they're about people I know and mostly about the dark peculiarities of the human condition and sexuality. They're about the theatre of sex, the performances people put on and the lies behind the act.
People do remark that they're obviously painted by a woman, and I know that's true. Men painting these things are often as happy with the illusion as the viewer. Again I must clarify, this is not an anti male rant, in the private world of sex there's equal responsibility, the games are part of the fun and eroticism can be the antithesis of honesty.
It occurred to me while I was reading eroticism and art by Alyce Mahon that the position I find myself in has interesting echoes in art history. She recalls the paintings of Ingres (1780-1867) and his contemporaries who pandered to a fantasy ideal of a world in which women were sexually available and libidinous, and more importantly a world which wasn't readily checkable for factual accuracy. If they were portraying women in Wales, people would have just gone to have a look and returned deflated and disillusioned.
There was a recent resurgence in the popularity of orientalist art. The Tate hels an exhibition in 2008 "british orientalist painting" One of the featured paintings is by a female artist also working under a pseudonym. Henriette Browning's "harem interior" caused some consternation. Alyce Mahon mentions that in 1861 Olivier Merson complained that Browning's paintings showed "silent and bored women... chaste in the muslin of their long dresses" and that "these paintings somewhat disrupt our dreams of the orient"
Shame. The interesting thing is that in this description of the reaction to the disappointing reality that people are basically the same the world over I am reminded of my own experience and that now it's the west which has the capacity to disrupt dreams currently very active in the orient. The most casually offensive messages I get are from the middle east. This isn't because men there are fundamentally any different. It's just that they're believing the advertising of the western porn industry and lack the ability to come and check. There are more than enough men in this country who believe that women on the internet are from a strange and wonderful world where girls just desperately want to see badly taken mobile phone shots of nondescript body parts. (I know I go on about that a lot- but I get many less photos in my inbox these days so I just thought I'd throw it out there again and repel a few more.)
My work focuses on these illusions. The large scale ones I've already mentioned. And the smaller ones. The reality of being alienated or connected and the ways sexuality is used in honesty and in lies. My paintings are often lit as if they show a stage performance. Sometimes the subjects are confrontational and direct. Sometimes they're anonymous and turned away, but still aware of the viewer. Sometimes people are more honest in sex than in life, sometimes the opposite. Sometimes people will engage in levels of intimacy in the bedroom but will be unable to communicate with their clothes on. Sometimes women will put on the sexual performance of a lifetime and not see it as absurd that they can't ask their sex partner if they're in an exclusive relationship. Sometimes men are tender and sweet in the bedroom in a way you just wouldn't recognise if you saw them in a pub with their mates. It's a different world, a mystery. And the reality of it can be uncomfortable. The reason my work is "obviously done by a woman" is that I talk about these things with my friends and I'm always amazed by the illusions we weave. A question I'm often asked by men is why women seem so much more sexually experimental at the start of a relationship and suddenly the more exciting and forbidden acts are birthday treats. That's a common thing to happen. It's part of the game for many people.
I'm fascinated by the dissonance which sex causes in the power balance of relationships. How far women will go to convince themselves their man is different to those others and doesn't look at girls while strangely feeling the need to check their every move by some fairly extreme cyberstalking. It takes some effort to achieve something erotic within the constraints of modern life, insecurity and domestic normality.
But there's a double bluff in my work, it's deliberately staged, but there's an underlying truth. It actually depicts what women are when there's no men around at all. It's aware of the eventual viewer but it's not contrived to deceive. Some of my best paintings are of phoos taken in moments just before massive laughing fits. Because in my experience with every single one of my models is that girls left alone just don't take themselves all that seriously. And that's why my paintings look obviously done by a woman. Men just don't really know what that world is like because it changes when a (straight) man is present. It's a world as remote to the viewer as Ingres' turkish bath, but it does exist. It's a lot more real in essence than the art copied from pornography or glamour shoots by male photographers, that's for sure. It's just different, that's all. I'm a girl painting girls, because that's what I know and understand.
Ok maybe "understand" was taking it too far ;)
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
What's a girl to do?
Erotic art, it's a minefield. I really want to use social networking and blogging to show people what I do because it's so very difficult to exhibit. If you've been reading before you know the problems I'd faced but it seemed that listing myself as married stopped the overtly sexual approaches.
Yesterday however I got a message from a British man who had seen my work in a group on facebook. "loving it" he said "very sensuous, love the style" So I thought, here's someone actually interested in the art. I said he could friend request me if he liked as I welcome all kinds of feedback and post up lots of my work in progress over there.
He requested me. Then he found my blog and messaged me again. He said "is your work mainly for a female audience then?" And he BLOCKED ME! before I had a chance to reply to his enquiry or accept his request.
I'm shocked. Is it really the case that I have to either be single and friendly and constantly deal with men who think I'm asking to be propositioned in sometimes fairly extreme ways jst because I paint naked women and then get very angry when I'm not interested, or pretend I'm married do this to try and fend off advances and make them angry anyway. I'm not averse to male attention when it's respectful but I don't like this at all.
If that's the case then I just don't know what to try next. Pretend to be a man? Any suggestions for a name....? Go on, if I've pissed you off, do your worst! I don't mind, as long as it's in public, not in a private message from a coward hiding behind a stock photo of a bodybuilder. Grrrr.
[caption id="attachment_135" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="I'm getting through a lot of blue paint this week!"]
[/caption]
Yesterday however I got a message from a British man who had seen my work in a group on facebook. "loving it" he said "very sensuous, love the style" So I thought, here's someone actually interested in the art. I said he could friend request me if he liked as I welcome all kinds of feedback and post up lots of my work in progress over there.
He requested me. Then he found my blog and messaged me again. He said "is your work mainly for a female audience then?" And he BLOCKED ME! before I had a chance to reply to his enquiry or accept his request.
I'm shocked. Is it really the case that I have to either be single and friendly and constantly deal with men who think I'm asking to be propositioned in sometimes fairly extreme ways jst because I paint naked women and then get very angry when I'm not interested, or pretend I'm married do this to try and fend off advances and make them angry anyway. I'm not averse to male attention when it's respectful but I don't like this at all.
If that's the case then I just don't know what to try next. Pretend to be a man? Any suggestions for a name....? Go on, if I've pissed you off, do your worst! I don't mind, as long as it's in public, not in a private message from a coward hiding behind a stock photo of a bodybuilder. Grrrr.
[caption id="attachment_135" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="I'm getting through a lot of blue paint this week!"]
[/caption]
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Modern day delilah
[caption id="attachment_121" align="alignnone" width="192" caption="modern day delilah"]
[/caption]
Sometimes I don't know what my paintings will be called until I'm listing them for sale. It has to be something which makes sense. Luckily, when I was listing this on etsy I was singing "modern day delilah" by Kiss in my head and so she was christened.
I often trawl through my itunes playlist to find titles (please don't look at my titles now, the knowledge of what I'm listening to while I'm painting might take awaty any erotic mystique my work has left!)
Modern day Delilah could be a title for my whole body of work. It sums up my feeling about making erotic art in these times and this whole thing of blogging about postmodern sexuality and erotic representation of the female of our amazing species. Both in the photographs I take- which are never seen by anyone except my models- and the paintings which they are created for.
I suppose she represents the contradictions of putting my work up with full awareness that I'm going to appear alongside male oriented pornography and this will always get me in trouble and ultimately be my downfall. The devil in the keywords. But I refuse to be driven out. Like I'd refuse to give up wearing miniskirts if my legs had ever been good enough to be up for the task!
You can look at her, you can buy her and put her on your wall. But you can't tame her.
"Same old ways,
Modern day Delilah"
;)
[/caption]Sometimes I don't know what my paintings will be called until I'm listing them for sale. It has to be something which makes sense. Luckily, when I was listing this on etsy I was singing "modern day delilah" by Kiss in my head and so she was christened.
I often trawl through my itunes playlist to find titles (please don't look at my titles now, the knowledge of what I'm listening to while I'm painting might take awaty any erotic mystique my work has left!)
Modern day Delilah could be a title for my whole body of work. It sums up my feeling about making erotic art in these times and this whole thing of blogging about postmodern sexuality and erotic representation of the female of our amazing species. Both in the photographs I take- which are never seen by anyone except my models- and the paintings which they are created for.
I suppose she represents the contradictions of putting my work up with full awareness that I'm going to appear alongside male oriented pornography and this will always get me in trouble and ultimately be my downfall. The devil in the keywords. But I refuse to be driven out. Like I'd refuse to give up wearing miniskirts if my legs had ever been good enough to be up for the task!
You can look at her, you can buy her and put her on your wall. But you can't tame her.
"Same old ways,
Modern day Delilah"
;)
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