The Erotic Self: 5 Artists Working in Nude Self Portraits
This year, the biggest change to FECK:ART is the addition of a new Self Portrait category with a prize of $1000. This means that if your entry is a self portrait, it is eligible in ALL categories – so you could take out the $3000 First Prize, the $1000 Runner Up or the $1000 Self Portrait Prize.
Last year it just so happened that both of the Runners Up were self portraits and this has inspired us to deliberately encourage artists to submit self portraits in 2015.
Artist, B Mae said about her self portraits, “instructions for one in a million:”
‘instructions for one in a million’ 2/3 2014 by B Mae
My body is my art work and I’m constantly enthralled by what it can do and what others can do to it… I am constantly bombarded with images that tell me what I should and shouldn’t do with my body. I’m hoping through these photographs and instructions, I am turned on, naked, adventurous and hopefully sexually fulfilled.
‘Untitled (Hysteric)’ 2014 by Linsey Gosper
I have been exhibiting work that sits broadly within the themes of women’s sexual agency and female pleasure, exhibitionism, and the inherent power relations of photography, and control of the female image, in particular regard to the empowerment of self-portraiture, for many years.
– Linsey Gosper, FECK:ART 2014 Runner Up.
Please note that if you are concerned about entering a self portrait under your real name, feel safe in FECK:ART’s discretion with artists who choose to use pseudonyms. We would never reveal any information that you have shared with us in confidence.
There is a huge scope of potential when considering exploring erotic self portraiture. Turning the camera on oneself as the subject forces you to examine how you see yourself as an erotic being, how you want to be seen, and how others in society might view you with an erotic gaze. Here are some compelling examples we’ve found recently to help get you started thinking about the possibilities.
Jocelyn Allen – ‘Covering the Carpet’ series 2014
According to this British artist, these self portraits are in response to an incident in July 2014, when a painting was removed from a London gallery for showing a woman’s pubic hair.
“These self-portraits are a performance in contorting, balancing and/or leaping the body into poses, in order to attempt to conceal this area.”
Allen makes a statement on the constant scrutiny of the female form, body hair, body politics and censorship.
via: Art Fucks Me
Swedish photographer, artist, model and curator, 22 year old Arvida Byström, has had her photography featured in several magazines and exhibited all over the world. Her unapologetically in-your-face attitude pervades through her soft pastel aesthetic, to examine sex, femininity, gender and fetish. Her nude self portraits seem to dare the viewer to objectify her, and her gifs go as far as directly acknowledging the existence of the viewer.
via: iGNANT
Columbian artist Faber Franco creates conceptual images which are often self portraits. These soft and sensual shots are interesting for the way Franco plays with his body, twisting it into odd poses, or using props for quirky, surreal results. Visit his Flickr page for more of his work.
via iGNANT
Noriko Yabu – ‘Suisou’ series 2013
The water abstracts Noriko Yabu’s naked form in this series. With her body, the subject underneath the water and the camera positioned above, Yabu adds an extra lens to her self portrait that blurs and distorts her raw nudity. Does it lessen the erotic effect of her parts by masking them, or does this have the effect of teasing the erotic imagination?
via: Illusion
Polly Penrose – ‘A Body of Work’ series
This series was developed over seven years, evolving into a documentation of the artist’s body changing with age, pregnancy and motherhood and becoming a celebration of female identity. The photographer fits her body into spaces in an unrehearsed response to her environment. It’s only through the longevity of the project that Penrose came to understand that the series is about what it is to be a woman and “how we fit in to all the myriad roles that are expected of us.”
Each pose can be repeated over 60 times before Penrose gets her shot, making the self-portrait process an exhausting one for this artist. Often the chosen image will be one of the very last, when the fatigue of the shoot is most evident in her body.
via: Design Taxi & Dazed
These are all photographic examples, but don’t let that limit you. A self portrait can be any medium: video, performance, painting, drawing, even sculpture! We hope you’ll be inspired to engage your inner exhibitionist for FECK:ART 2015.
