Painter, Victoria Szilagyi combined an ancient technique with some very contemporary iconography in her latest series, Machinations. The tanned, pigtailed and silicon-endowed women (or girls, it’s hard to say which) that grace each piece from the collection were culled directly from pornography stills. Szilagyi used an encaustic process to great effect, creating swirling patterns and layers of texture that pulsate with energy and animate the figures. The result is a cartoonish image of a real subject that underscores the artificiality of both. As portraits, removed from any pornographic narrative, these faces read as pained, fearful or utterly demented. However, the recognizability of their source material is like a neon sign flashing in your peripheral vision -- revealing a disturbing incongruity.
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Thanks Rachel......I wanted to make a quick correction......the women I paint aren't culled directly from porn, the expressions are.......the images are also sometimes taken from various media sources, ads, movies, etc. The source material is altered in that the actual identity of the person removed. The main point to to showcase how women's expressions are portrayed and perpetuated in media and popular culture. The reason I frequently draw on pornography is that while that model selling yogurt may not be expressing herself exactly the same way as the porn star, they really are just variations of the same contrived mask.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Victoria. Sorry about the mistake, that's an important distinction. I think your work is fabulous! - rachel brown
DeleteAlso, I'm working on a new body of work you can see in spring of 2012!
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