RJ
In Progress...
Protean Micro/Macrocosm
Influenced by Jung's theories on Protean Flux, "Protean Micro-Macrocosm" explores the metaphoric and physical/aesthetic links between the Micro and the Macro through the ambiguous shapes studied through microscope and telescope,. While microorganisms can embody the life in it’s most basic form, a galactic body speaks to the metaphysical. This relationship between Science and Mysticism reflects an inner struggle between conviction in reason and logic and a despondent yearning for spiritual assurance.
Women in Shunga
Shunga Tiles
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This series was inspired by my fascination with Shunga, a Japanese erotic artform of the Edo period (1603 and 1867). Concentrating primarily on the work of Hokusai, I focused on the experience of the women depicted in Shunga, which highlights the internal dichotomies within the idolization of the courtesan and exagerration of eroticism, paired with playfulness and humor of Japanese attitudes towards sexuality.
NSFSV
The Figure
I tend to be most attracted to ideas surrounding people, particularly the body, often though a female lens. Which seems inevitable, I can only really tell my own story as I see it, and I’m either uninterested or incapable of detaching myself from that lens. I’ve always had a very comfortable relationship with the body, (most likely due to my mom regularly walking around the house naked as I was growing up.) I generally bored with the softcore-porn-paintings of ‘beautiful’ nudes. Maybe because they don’t feel real or human to me, not relatable. I’d rather see the flaws. It’s the imperfections; the physical and psychological idiosyncrasies that humanize them. Often exaggerating the features and “flaws” that intrigue me, imperfections, musculature skeletal structure, the parts that explain the whole. Exaggerating the physical internal logic to better understand how and why things are. Jenny Saville and Lucian Freud and personal heroes of mine.
Orientalism: re-orientation
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A lithography series exploring the dichotomies between the exoticism of the orientalist movement and the cultures they exoticise, with a focus on how eastern women were perceived through the western male gaze.