Reflecting ambiguities
These enameled figures are an attempt to simultaneously express the inner and the outer, i.e. the experiencing of one’s body from within and the surrounding views of that same body from without. They are also an attempt to maximize the sensual sight of the light reflecting on the feminine curves from many angles, drawing in the observer.
Themes of devotion, liberation, submission, bondage, … can become apparent as well.
Do we see certain yoga poses? Or is this purely fetish or BDSM art? It is certainly erotic, in the sense of its visceral directness and sensuality, hereby abstaining from interpretation, thought and analysis, which only generate distance.
In fact, we would like to reclaim and reinvigorate the word “erotic” by broadening it with its old philosophical meaning, i.e. considerations of love, relationship, friendship and an appeal to the body and embodiment in general. It opens up the potential of attunement, flow and intimacy between the viewer and the artwork.
Hence these explorations intoΒ “neo-erotic” art provide another pathway to grasp its inherent inscendental qualities and to stimulate embodied imagination.
For more on a proposed erotics of art (Susan Sontag), see theΒ “Against interpretation” series.
Learn more about art that aims to defy distance and the subject-object duality: inscendence & inscendental art
Reflecterende dubbelzinnigheden