Debi Oulu:
“My story is all of our stories
because if there is one thing that we all have in common, cross gender, cross
race, cross world, it is our obsessive pre-occupation with our sexuality.”
These are words from the artist, Debi Oulu from an interview she did with
“Erotikos Film Festival”. Much of her work is highly erotic, and this in
combination with its blatant, shocking, approach to depicting sexual organs
comes across as almost crude and somewhat gross. In a critique of her work
titled, “An Artist without Borders” by Dr. Dalia Hakker-Orion, Art
Critic , it is written, “After what she calls, ‘the year of the teddy bears’,
she began to create art mainly of male genitalia and to represent the
attraction between the sexes, seduction through sculpture, video art and
multimedia.” These two sources make it evident that her work is all about
sexuality and seduction, and it is her material choice and bizarre application
of the erotic imagery (think the “human climbing wall”) that she fits my theme.
Monica Cook:
In a review of Monica
Cook’s work it is said, “Cook’s nude women continue to be engaged with
gorgeously rendered erotic food in scenes that elicit a range of emotion in the
viewer from mesmerized hilarity to horror.” In another critique of her work I
read, “Monica Cook paints beautiful and disturbing portraits of women.” I interpreted her paintings as erotic because
of the way she incorporated food, much like a painted version of another artist
I am interested in, Victoria Gaitan, she juxtaposes food with nude females. She
uses the food as a vehicle to induce seduction and suggest eroticism by using
it to cover the women. Aesthetically, the skin of the women looks slimy and
grossly covered In food, but still maintains a link to eroticism. This is why
her wok relates so heavily to my theme.
Sri Whipple:
I found the following notes from a review of Sri Whipple’s
work in The Salt Lake Tribune. “The truth is, little of Whipple's work shows
graphic nudity. Hanging on the walls, for instance, there's maybe one nipple
and a phallic cartoon garden hose. Still, there's no denying his colorful
voluptuous figures seem inspired by a demented balloon twister. Some of his hyper
erotic canvases appear to writhe with legs, thighs, rumps and high heels.”
I found the article very interesting because it is true,
there is nothing blatantly disgusting or alarming in the pop art inspired
paintings he creates. Rather I think it is that slight and subtle connection or
allusion to eroticism that shocks the audience. He seems to combine balloons
and softly modeled forms with sexual imagery to hint at sexual acts and organs.
While some find his work alarming and disgusting, I think his technical
modeling of the paint is beautiful, and I like the shock value of discovering
these phallic balloons or nipples.
Kim Joon:
I found this from a review of two of his works, by
Christies, titled, “Stay”. Here is what the critic had to say: “…its innocence
overturned on the bare skin of a submissively seated female, reluctant yet
subtly tempted by the erotically crimson hand, parallel to the wicked mother's
poisonous red apple.”
I interpreted the red hand reaching out to the girl as some
sort of biblical or fantastical symbol possibly relating to sin and sexuality.
It is said that the female is “subtly tempted by the erotically crimson
hand...” I learned that yes, the hand universally has an erotic quality. At the
same time, I think it is still very creepy and gross looking. It looks almost
sickeningly seductive, like an unwanted attack or some sort of harassment. This
is clearly related to my theme of the grotesque and unusual suggesting
sexuality and eroticism.
Georg Herold:
I found the following in a review at a site called
“Sculpture News” : “Georg Herold, who belongs to the same generation as Sigmar
Polke, offers two enormous colorful nudes (one purple, the other an
eye-scorching coral), like voluptuous paper cut-outs by Matisse given volume
and then stretched almost to snapping point. In the manner of Expressionist
art, the effect is strained, tense and somewhat unsettling - but in a good
way.”
His work is described as both “voluptuous” and “unsettling”.
The image of the two forms I chose for this project are angular women with
their legs spread in seemingly suggestedly erotic positions. This review of
herold’s work backs up my interpretation by calling it unsettling, because that
adds to my correlation between the bizarre or unusal and the sexual.
Cj Jilek:
I found this information on her work in a brief bio of her
on the Carbondale Clay Center website: “Through
her work she questions ideas of beauty, attraction, eroticism, adaptation and
desire.”
CJ’s work related to
my theme of eroticism and while it is not necessarily bizarre or gross, it is
unusual. I am inspired by her cross over between the plant world and human
world, and their similarities in reproduction and life processes. Her work is
incredibly, technically rendered, and formally, looks flawless. Her ability to
link plants and their pollination and reproduction abilities to homo sapien sex
is strikingly unusual but works well because of her attention to detail. She
exemplifies my theme because of this stretch she forces from those two separate
worlds.
Patrick Veillet:
The pieces I had found from the artist Patrick Veillet were
sculptural accessories, much like jewelry but wit a lot of fine arts emphasis.
To much of my surprise, he is actually a perfume and fashion designer. And
furthermore, I have had a lot of trouble finding information about him because
he is French and his entire website is French as well as most of the interviews
and critiques of his work. I did find an interesting interview that was in a
magazine that was titled, “The extreme beauty of the inside”. Here is what he
had to say:
“The concept of exomorphism considers the hidden sensuality
of living bodies. I have a purely plastic attitude to this dimension of life.
The skeleton hidden within humans is frightening whereas the “exoskeleton” of
shellfish or insects is seen as beautiful. This sensitivity has led me to
consider exteriorization: I wanted to apply the same plastic attitude to the
inner skeleton. This escaped what we are used to seeing and involves a
relationship with the strange and extreme. I have tried to extract a poetry of
form that is applied to design. My objects inaugurate a new approach to design
that pushes form to extremes. Likewise, work on textures helps breathe life
into objects. The dorsal spine necklace in self-lightning glass is halfway
between a sculpture and the fashion accessory. It is jewelry with dreamlike and
mutant forms that constructs a new mythology. Techno-naturalism illustrates
this paradoxical will to interpret the natural through high-tech.”
He blurs the lines between humans and other animals,
including insects. This in combination with the fact that he is taking
something generally seen as not beautiful or strange and extreme and pushes that
on peoples bodies calling attention to their sensuality and humanism is
absolutely beautiful and exemplifies my theme perfectly.
(The link is his site because it was the only place I could
find the English translated version of this magazine published interview)
Jim Duvall:
“His art has
been shown at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival and many other erotic art
festivals around North America. He helped start The Betty Pages, an LGBT
magazine serving Whatcom and Skagit counties and was a writer and photographer
for the magazine for 5 years. As a sexuality activist Mr. Duvall has
volunteered for many organizations over the years. He is a founder and former
President of the Board of Directors of the Center for Sex Positive Culture (nee
Wetspot). He founded the Seattle Erotic Art Festival. He is a past President
and Board member of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.”
The only
information I could find published outside of the artist’s website was that on
his character and his life actions, not particularly his work. But through
this, it is made more evident that his art is absolutely, positively about sex.
I find that his work exemplify my theme because he often uses the human body to
altar it and contort it in ways it doesn’t ordinarily conform to on its own. It
is through these manipulations that he photographs these bodies. The images he
creates are rather alarming and disturbing, but still overtly erotic.
Victoria F. Gaitan:
The following is from a review of her solo exhibition in
D.C.: “Gaitán’s work focuses on female subjects, and in the past several years,
she has created provocative images of women that evoke in us a sense of beauty,
chaos and at times, decay.” When I saw some of Gaitan’s work at a different
gallery in Reston, I was surrounded with images of a beautiful woman smothered
in food, providing a sense of beauty and eroticism while looking dirty and
smothered in a grotesque amount of doughnuts. Her work is the perfect middle
ground that I was working to unveil through my theme: overwhelming disgust and
intense eroticism.
