THE FEMALE EROTIC ARTIST: IMPLICATIONS OF WORKING WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE DYSTOPIAN SOCIETY MASQUERADING AS A MODERN DEMOCRATIC LIBERAL UTOPIA
To make it in the world as an artist, to earn a crust, to be recognised, is hard enough, to be a success and achieve the golden chalice, that is the end of the Rainbow attained by only the fortunate few. To be an erotic artist, to work on the edge, especially within the narrow boundaries set by the dystopian society, is to make life even harder for oneself, for then you are truly the outsider fighting against the strictures, the constraints, and the downright censorial and outdated and redundant ethical and moral mores of a judgemental majority. The sole objective of the dystopian society, in whatever form, is control. The World of today is controlled through technology and finance, and it is therefore easy for ‘dystopia’ to flourish. By way of example, access to the technology of the bartered advertisement industry selling the latest ipad 4 or 50” flatter screen plasma television, or motor vehicles which park themselves and beneath the hood are crammed with computerised gadgetry is governed purely and simply by the steady principle of purchasing power; and otherwise is only accessible to the vast and always growing underclass through criminality [witness the scenes of the London riots which a shocked ruling political and technological and financial elite proudly beamed into every home, as if to say ‘see, after everything we have done for them, and look how they reward us’]. And yet even those considered to be the underclass are lulled into compliance by the lure of technological wizardy and the prospect of money. Why else do people bother to do the Lottery on a Saturday night? Why else do they so willingly offer themselves up for reality ridicule? Why else do they expose themselves to the potential of humiliation on television shows such as ‘X’ Factor? It is precisely because inside the dystopia the core values of what it is to be human, what makes us important and unique, what sets us apart as a species, are either forgotten or ignored. They have been replaced by a culture of greed where money is king and fame and power are rewards. Such a society is naturally easy to control and willingly offers itself up, and to work anywhere on the margin, or, heaven forfend, outside of the controlled dystopia is to incur disapproval and wrath. Thus, the erotic artist as non biased non judgemental observer can really only hope for recognition within his or her own world, and elicit approval from those of kindred spirit and like mind, unless of course he or she is very lucky. Contemporary art and artists are rooted firmly within the boundaries established by the dystopia in which they live and work. They are accepted and recognised by a society which will gleefully hang their work, be it a delicate landscape or a garish daubing of slabs of bright paint, or a representational study of a favourite aunt or child, in living surroundings that the length and breadth of, for example England, smack of conformity. Where the erotic artist, who once perhaps had been mainstream, dares to step outside and beyond the accepted norm, as with Eric Fischl (born 1
1948 - ), then comment, disapproval, criticism, is most often savage, as in his painting ‘Love’, where on page 399 [World Art: The Essential Illustrated History, Foreword Dr. Mike O’Mahoney, Flame Tree Publishing, 2006] it is stated “What has marked out his work ... is the psycho-sexual undertones of his compositions, in which the spectator becomes a voyeur, looking at scenes which may appear relatively simple and straightforward on one level, but which reveal disturbing elements of anxieties, phobias, insecurities and a wide range of sexual hang-ups, invariably unexplained and thus open to individual interpretation.” Now personally I would not consider this analysis a criticism, as the author seems to imply, but instead not merely the objective of the erotic artist but of all art. Reality is a paradox, the world about us being partially perceived and partially construct. In the world of the construct, in which the citizens of dystopia may dwell and may harbour certain beliefs about the society which governs their lives, beliefs that are fixed and others apparently occurring as random and non linear principles on what regulates good conduct, rights and obligations, ethics, morality, and duty, there is rarely any questioning on what or who holds the ultimate moral authority. Thus it is easier for these people to condemn than to actively and honestly seek for solutions. If a man suddenly becomes active as a violator or abuser of women it is not until he comes to public attention that questions are asked and reasons sought. Similarly if a very young girl has an unwanted, or rather undesirable pregnancy that is not a thing to be celebrated in any society, but it is something which ought to be addressed by way of understanding, education, and guidance for the young as they come through puberty. The erotic artist does this, celebrating sexuality and the sensual nature of the human sexual psyche in a way that no other medium can, even celebrating what dystopia regards as the dark side, or what is described as ‘deviancy’, but always with a sense of ‘who we are’, oftentimes fun, heightening awareness and perception and just saying (and sometimes yelling it out loud and in your face), ‘It’s alright. It really is. You are allowed to enjoy yourself, but keep within the bounds of what you know.’ A person can only do this when there is understanding. Who would deny the entry into the world of a loved and cherished baby? If there is a God up there in the starry firmament looking down on us then a baby is his way of telling us, ‘there, see, you are not alone.’ “Go gracefully angels, I miss you. The others are lovely. You would have been lovely too.” [Pickton P, ‘Letter to two babies who never were’: Everywoman, September 1995] Of course no one would wish to curb the female drive to know and nurture and love a small life that she has brought forth from her womb, but it is only ever right when the baby is wanted and the parents are mature enough and of an age and the time is right. As an erotic artist I feel I have a duty not merely to raise awareness of the joys of intimacy and love, of the sheer power of the sensual, the corporeal, but also to help to educate and change for the better the dystopia I find myself trapped within. For me I think despite the comments I make in this article, I disagree with the notion per se of applying the label of ‘erotic art’ to my work. I produce from my own studio what I like to think of as an ever evolving body of work that reflects my overriding passion for producing art within the figurative genre; I try to highlight that diverse physical and psychic energy, that spiritual entity residing deep within the core of 2
humanity, which is in constant communication with itself, with others, and with the world surrounding us. I like to think I am evoking a range of cathartic awareness for my viewers; taste, truth, pleasure, the physical and the non physical, and yes, even human frailty, and that I am capturing a moment in time soon to be lost in the vast passing ocean current that is time and eternity, a glimpse of a moment transcribed visually, connecting us with what it might mean – loaded – to really live life. Artists have historically, in the final analysis, always turned at last to the human figure. The body is a recurring thematic, and it is no less so for me. It can delight, frustrate, disgust, educate, titillate; it is an experiment that can investigate gender and sexuality and explain the mystery and the power of what it means to be Man or Woman. It is a precursor, movement aiding understanding and appreciation of body habitation. To be able to transcend the dystopian restrictions and truly be able to decode and decipher the metaphor of body and emotion, lust, sex, want, need, desire, if consciousness is opened to encompass the physical, pathological and psychological nature of sensory reality, then truly it can be fairly stated that reality itself must be paradoxical. I find something very beautiful and touching in this proposition as an artist, for it touches upon a primal echo within where we all share and we are all the same. We may all have individual experiences unique to our own existence; fleeting notions, ideas, self dictations, choreography, language, love, love sickness, trans-body trans-gender dilemmas, transformations, metamorphoses, dualities, fear of the double-axis, desire, death, taste, passion, pleasure, pain. This is all a matter of individual experience to be sure, although as human beings we will empathise, but what does naturalness imply anyway? To me the body is striking, with its endless beauty of form and the mystery of what lies within, beyond the windows of the eyes, beyond the seductive smile, beyond the firing of chemical reaction and the release of hormones, the firing of synapses, the gut wrenching purity of orgasm. I have never yet met anyone who can describe the sensation of orgasm in any meaningful way, and so I believe it is only through the representative that the ultimate source of bodily pleasure can be laid bare to the world, and for me that means the erotic artist. The dystopian society masquerading as a free liberalism can afford the erotic artist, for the instructive and illuminating power he or she can render on canvas, or in sculpture, or with a photograph, or the written word, even if historically the practitioner has been shunned, censored, driven underground, and sometimes even killed. What is history anyway but an imperfect record of peaks and troughs? Even the most cursory examination of human history conducted by the most unwilling of history students might at first sight be seen as sufficient to rebut the proposition that ‘love conquers all’. It might convince dystopia that the erotic artist, mired in all that is dark and depraved in the human psyche, does not and never could represent that which is truly the best and most valuable of human instincts and emotions, but I believe that despite the millennia of warfare and brute savagery and the terrible suffering human beings have inflicted upon one another and themselves throughout history, the essential nature within
3
the core of humanity is governed by love, and at the core of this love, this primal elemental force, is sex, clean, healthy, all encompassing sex; sexual awareness, sexual pleasure, sex as a means to species survival and individual and collective immortality, sexual giving and sexual taking, sexual violence, most often occasioned by the unattainable fantasy and unrestrained desire, and, in so far as it is considered so by the dystopian society, sexual deviancy across the entire gamut of human experience from the “queers� to the sado eroticists and the masochists and the sadists. Sex as reward, sex as gift, sex for profit, sex as punishment, sex as indicator of status, sex as satiating agent of lust, sex as conqueror, sex as the fulfilment of desire, sex for nothing more elemental or idealised than it is (or it can and should be) fun; sex at the heart of what it means to be human. This is what I seek to celebrate when I immerse myself in my work and stare for the first time at the seemingly vast whiteness of a new virgin canvas. But is there a counterpoint? Should the more basic desire, or the lust for sex, be divorced from seemingly long cherished and widely held romanticised notions of love? Can one really exist in isolation divorced from the other? Well, if love be emotion and feeling rather than merely object, what means it or matters it if one person, wife or husband, or strangers for that matter, should derive pleasure from what is considered to be outside of the sexual norm, or there is no inclusion of the dystopian ideal of love? What harm is there when acts of sexual abandon and covert (or even overt) deviancy occurs between consenting adults? Why should the dystopian society, which is in any event a partial, if not a complete, construct, be permitted to frown upon certain acts and practices, and, in some cases, to legislate to criminalise or seek to prevent via the imposition of outdated and most often hypocritical religious and ethical mores and drive underground into dark basements, dingy clubs, backstreet parlours, and furtive gatherings of like minds, that which gives pleasure? I myself have loved many times, and expressed through the innate nature of my sensuality and understanding of my own feminine sexuality the love I have felt for my partners, and when one relationship has ended it has not meant that my love for that person has ended, only the manner of its expression. As a corollary to this it could be considered that I have had a penchant for expressing my love through sex, but like vast numbers of women I also have children and the love I feel for them is of course different. In the bedroom (or the back garden, or in a dungeon set up with no other purpose in mind than the satisfaction of a fantasy and the sating of lust even) an expression of feeling and emotion through sexual gratification, whether in taking, or receiving, is as valid, and certainly more honest, as the purer idealised version of love held up to be a desired and societal norm by the dystopian society, since ultimately all forms of love, whether it be self love or transient love, romantic love or the desire for that which is beyond the mainstream, are expressions of what it means to be a human being. To be the slut, to play the slut, is to remove oneself beyond the mere indicator, or the object of desire, it is to become the desire itself and the fulfilment in the broadest sense.
4
Thus, in [‘The Matrixial Gaze’, 1991, Bracha Lichtenberger-Ettinger; Feminist Arts and Histories Network, University of Leeds 1995, p. 14] considers the desire is expressed in art as being “... in the visual field, a gaze to which desire is directed. If desire is evoked in the artwork, it depends upon an internal organisation based on the drive and not a representational organisation in the field of appearance on the one hand, or on “pure” perception on the other.” Naturally one would have to agree with this basic proposition, since the first thing that will confront a piece of art, whether it be in the form of painting, sound, smell, or written word, is the eyes. It is only thereafter the brain, heart, soul, follow to create lust, which is what I would hope is the objective, or a main objective, of all erotic art practitioners. Whilst the sensual and frankly lust instilling nature of erotic art today is not entirely object based, as once it was, particularly in the pre modern era, and understanding and a rewarding appreciation can flow from close examination, nonetheless at base the human condition when it comes to sensuality is still driven by lust, even where there is also love. It is therefore the duty of the erotic artist to highlight the human condition in its rawest, if beautiful element, and to foster understanding and enlightenment. Parker and Pollock say of the late nineteenth-century German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker (18761907) “She exposes the contradictions facing women when they attempt to represent themselves in art and as artists. For not only do women need to be recognised as artists, but the very signs and meanings of art in our culture have to be ruptured and transformed because traditional iconography works against women’s attempts to represent themselves. Their intentions are undermined by the meanings or connotations that specific iconographies carry.” [Parker R & Pollock G, OLD MISTRESSES, Women, Art and Ideology; Pandora Press, 1981, p. 119] This proposition is as true today as it was when it was written, and for the accepting trusting citizen of dystopia it is no more nor less than how things ought to be and remain. ‘Suspended 1’ (painting) is an example in my work of an admixing of the paradox within the juxtaposition of contemporary identity politics when set against who we think we are, what we think we are, and what we think we know. If this painting were gazed at within the context of a gallery situated in, say, a rural English village, as opposed to the locations it has been seen, with a viewing audience composed mainly of that sector of society (the overwhelming majority) unable, or unwilling, to recognise the dystopian nature of their world, what then would constitute moral language? The painting expresses ego, subjugation, and expressionism, not because that is how this particular audience would see it, but because these are the themes, the feelings, and the raw emotions which consumed me as I was creating it. For me, inside me, in my heart and in all that constitutes my sexual psyche, there is embodied within ‘Suspended’ all that is representative of subject, object, abject, desire, pain, pleasure and beauty, which sensory elements I do not use to shock, but rather to titillate, to encourage exploration, to look for meaning, to find pleasure in. It is the real in lights, held up, placed on offer, whispering at first and then screaming out to the viewer ‘Waken up! Look about you! Live! Love! Experience! Before it is too late! There is no dark side!’ Linda Nochlin in considering the body as a less than holistic object worthy of 5
desire (sic Lust) disingenuously points out “Art historians ... have a tendency to forget that the human body is not just the object of desire, but the site of suffering, pain, and death ...” It is a metaphor for an understanding of what it means to be human, to be sure, but it must be better to celebrate life and love and desire, lust and sexual gratification and pleasure, through art than to dwell upon “suffering, pain, and death.” ‘Persephone’ (charcoal picture), I am unashamedly subjective about, having striven hard when I was creating this work to imbue her with a universality that will, I hope, cross the gender divide and move beyond labelling. For too long woman was forced to, and expected to, conform to a male ideal of what it meant to beautiful, feminine, or even sexual, and always, always, she had to conform to the male fantasy, to meet the male desire rather than be free to be herself. Whilst to some extent, as a consequence of largely male dominated media and advertising industries, it is still the male fantasy driven ideal of woman that is dangled before woman, which is of course only true for those who are the adherents of the dystopian dream world. Germaine Greer comments in relation this ideal (fantasy) “The exciting woman of fantasy is the one who creates the desire and releases virile potential by the mere sight of her.” [Greer G, The Female Eunuch, Harper Collins, 1971, p. 220] It seems to me the fantasy adapts itself as time passes, but always it remains male driven. I would hope that in ‘Persephone’ I have achieved my aim of correcting that state of affairs, which for many men for so long had seemed the natural way of the world and the essential nature of the relationship between men and women. Persephone portrays an instinctive and innate beauty that stares back at the viewer and beyond into her own power and the soulfulness that lies deep within the female psyche and which endows her with uncontrolled passion and emotion and raw sexual power when permitted free expression. This is the sexual enchantment and allure which is woman, and it is a sacred gift to be treasured and nurtured and has been present since the origin of the world. In art, as in all areas of a free and truly liberated society, the wild natural woman, sexually liberated and embracing, is what the artist should be celebrating. She is Demeter, daughter of the Earth Goddess, a lost love child, restored at last to fire. She resides within the guts! And yet, the dystopian woman remains silent on the fact she is on fire, even where she is aware of it. The artist as observer or social commentator and individualist interpreter cannot allow himself or herself to be bounded in and limited by the constraints of the society in which they function and work, for that society will by its very nature consider itself an ideal world and a utopian construct. Consider Doctor Pangloss when advising the hapless Candide “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”, saving of course that in every one of Candide’s misadventures, once he leaves the benign philosophy of Liebnizian optimism behind and goes out into the world in the company of his mentor, he is viewed by the prevailing power as the deviant, the outsider, the bringer of ill fortune. [Voltaire: Candide ou l’Optimisme, Penguin Classics, 1759]. And of course, and despite the much lauded and copied ideals of 18th century Revolutionary France, (liberty, equality, fraternity), and the activities of les philosophes, the country was as far from being a utopian society as was
6
imaginable, as indeed was pre Revolutionary France. ‘Society’ was, is, and will probably always remain dysfunctional and dystopian, and therefore the artist, particularly the artist working on the edge or on the margins, is under an absolute duty to fight against restraints and to refuse to be limited or to allow himself or herself to accept self censorship in what is produced and displayed to the world. Recently I was asked by a gallery owner if he could display some of my work in his gallery, but he cautioned as a caveat that I should not pay any attention to what he had on display in his front window as it was “that sort of mundane stuff the public like to see”. What the public likes to see is an emotive enough first principle to consider and analyse, certainly it is for the blithely ignorant living under the umbrella and protection of the ‘benign’ dystopian dictatorship, since they are constantly being told just what it is they do like and either lack the drive or understanding to even think about it, or they simply don’t care. Queer theory is an attempt by some of those truly enlightened in what matters, and what should matter, to destabilise notions associated with the first principle referred to above, and in particular with labelling people into gender roles and sexual orientation. Oh, he exposes his penis in public - a sick flasher; she’s had six partners in the last six months – slut; he likes phone sex – inadequate as a male; she likes to be whipped – deviant. She is a lesbian, lesbo, muncher on the furry pie, etc. are the labels the dystopian ‘we are better than you’ citizenry will apply to a woman as a consequence of perceived sexual orientation, and then carry it further if the woman happens to be, say, black, or Chinese. It will then be, she is a black lesbo, or she is a slitty eyed muncher on the furry pie. The distinction between what a subject is and what a subject does is never considered, which is why the erotic artist must bring to the work a moral and ethical authority and honesty based upon personal experience. There is nothing quite like sensuality, sexiness, being provocative and downright dirty, when it is based on one’s own experience. Historically the first real taboo to be broken down by art was the body, nakedness, and yet despite Church, State, and Establishment opposition through the ages it is this nakedness which is at the heart of art. And why not? As the gender illusionist RuPaul commented, “You are born naked, and the rest is drag”. [RuPaul from Keeps, D. A. New York Times, 11 July 1993 H23]. Let us not remain shrouded in drag throughout our lives. Throw off the shackles. I present here a selection of my work, spirit and form, love and lust, shroudless and naked. Enjoy!
7