Series “Tumblr
Selfies”:
Portrait
Digital painting/collage
31.5″ × 31.5″ (Image)
800mm × 800mm (Image)
C-Type Fuji Pearl mounted Aluminium
The series “Tumblr
Selfies” is an investigation into society gender stereotypes and current social
media user’s obsession with selfies, specifically the naked ones. With this
series I set off to challenge the taboo around graphic depiction of genitalia,
which in many mainstream online social platforms has led to the absurdity where
an artwork of nude is censored and considered inappropriate, while violence,
hate and bigotry seems to be acceptable.
I wanted to address the hypocritical
double standard of moral in our societies while demonstrating for example, that
an erection or labia have too an intrinsic artistic value. The compositions
have all the same visual structure: a selfie, a cover of a gender biased pulp literature
from the 50’s and an ancient erotic object from across different cultures. Each
composition has something to tell and is not for the faint hearted. You want to
leave your indoctrination outside of the picture.
Importantly in this series
are the colour palettes that have been adjusted specifically for people with protanopia
colour blindness, which characterised by a difficulty in distinguishing red and
green colours. To that end I worked with my partner, who has protanopia, to
help me adjust the colour spectrum of my artwork so that he too would be able
to distinguish better the shades and figures. I wanted to help others with similar
perceptual colours shift to be able to enjoy my work.
