❌ feedback, questions or thoughtful compliments are welcome - yes the art is often erotic, but it's not an invitation to be disrespectful
❌ you can buy me a coffee if you enjoy my work ♥️
If you wanna know what this is all about:
15ish years ago I started a series at art school, based on a Dita Von Teese quote about what single cosmetic item she'd want if stranded on a desert island. The answer was red lipstick, because she could use it on her lips, to rouge her cheeks, and to pink up her nipples should she meet an attractive local. It stuck with me and kicked off an obsession with burlesque, pinup, sexual expression & feminism that never really ended and continues to evolve.
For my studio project when I was 19, I drew dozens and dozens of tiny pinups and nudes, using only black line, and red ink or watercolour representing Dita's desert island lipstick on the lips, cheeks, and nipples. My lecturer saw the potential and pushed me to explore the ideas deeper. She encouraged me to be my own subject, be the feminine form I was so compulsively representing and do some self-exploration, some examination of the gaze, power, sexuality, femininity, queerness, culture, identity, cosmetics, whatever. She must have felt frustrated when she realised I wasn't yet able to see my ideas through to a deeper conclusion, but I was so young. I loved learning about wild feminist performance artworks but I didn't see that I have gone so much further in my own work.
Things may not have clicked at the time (many things actually), but I realise now that I'm finally doing the project properly, even if it's super overdue. It's late, but I got there organically in my own time, eventually.