Moving forward!

I was very excited about the feedback I received during our midterm critique. I thought there were some really great ideas and insights about my work (especially the fact about horns coming from male animals and the conversation it creates when placing them on a female figure, thank you Mikaela), which I am considering while I think of new ideas going forward. I also received some great feedback from my theory, history, research paper. I focused my paper (and the main idea of my art) around the themes of fashion, the human figure, and identity. Here are some of the questions/ideas from the professors that stuck with me:

Are you challenging or catering to dominant societal values of beauty?
How does your work reinforce or break down power structures?
Seek out historical and artistic references to the role of the artist...
Find out about theoretical frameworks within queer studies...
Get more specific - less Warhol and more now...

I have started to apply these questions to my most recent sculpture (which is now finished!) :

I feel I am creating a sort of surreal beauty that is unattainable in our world, where form does not have literal function and is simply a visual layer. For me, the use of "decadent"materials (pearls, roses, animal horns) suggests the idea of beauty, but are not things that are usually worn on the everyday; they are things typically associated with the upper class and material wealth. I feel the use of horns on a female breaks down power structures, and comments more on the idea of both male and female characteristics in an individual.

Finally, I am starting to look at the history of artists using an "alter-ego", such as Marcel Duchamp and his female persona, and Andy Warhol's drag-focused work. I checked a book out from the library about cross-dressing in the time of Shakespearian theatre (women were not allowed to act on stage and therefore men would dress as the opposite sex for theatrical roles); the book argues that this caused the perception of women to be constructed largely by men, and paved the way for the contemporary drag scene. I am also scanning through a book of essays from scholars written about drag and the aspects of "changing" genders. Much of this book is centered around identity and how it is influenced by sexuality, gender, and challenging heteronormative ideologies. Finally, I am interested in a chapter from   one of my books called The Painted Witch. This chapter discusses the female in art history depicted as a "man-eater": "The fantasy that women, and particularly beautiful women, are deadly dangerous and can usurp men's power, is amongst the oldest in our civilization" (The Painted Witch 39). I find this quote compelling when related to drag. Suddenly, when a man is dressing as a woman (or using a female as an alter-ego), the power structures of a beautiful female challenging the male viewer's power becomes problematic. Suddenly, a man's power can be "usurped" (somewhat under-handedly) by another man.

Finally, I had a revolutionary talk with Maddy in my studio! She gave me the idea of making a mold of my mannequin head to make multiple casts, so I can reproduce the head form quickly and inexpensively (possibly for a series). We discussed the idea of making them out of plaster; with plaster, I could carve anatomical features on the figure, in addition to painting different anatomical structures on the surface. This would give me a way to include my interest in anatomy in my figures while changing the overall look of the forms and in turn the conversations created by the visuals. I am excited to start this project this week and see what I can come up with.........

Last but not least, I just wanted to share some photos I took of my friend Anders becoming his drag character Victoria Sexton. Photography is proving to be a useful medium to document my environment while I search for answers to my art's questions.