Below is a small selection of drawings from an ongoing project I began in the spring of 2013. Most of my previous work is photographic and when I decided as a change of pace to try my hand at drawing I wondered where I would find human subjects for my studies. But then I remembered the Internet is almost entirely naked.
As I gathered images, I found myself more and more captivated by the ones with a palpable atmosphere of boredom. And it is important to note that this is not a jab at the subjects in the images I used. I realized I was exploring a more general problem of boredom and sexuality. It is not a solo problem. Not a male problem. Nor is it a digital problem (though I think it is becoming more and more visible through social media). And I think it's only somewhat a contemporary problem.
I am certain people around the world and throughout history have always found themselves bored horny--and I think the fact that I am fairly hopeless at drawing faces and people has helped highlight this universality. By grace (!) of my hand, these subjects become thoroughly anonymous, if they weren't already in the original images. They become stand-ins and fungible. Or, perhaps, surrogates?
The only thing that is uniquely contemporary (apart from the Ikea furniture) is the fact that so many people are now able to take pictures of themselves. Throughout time pornography has with very few exceptions preserved (as so often in prostitution) a strict gap between the sexual object and the user/gazer-cum-businessman. In Bored Horny these distinctions collapse. The one framing the image is the one in the image. And though there may be cases in which the image was not intended for a worldwide audience, they are at least being composed by the subject who has then cast it out into the void himself. This shift--that an individual create their own image of themselves as a sexual object--is a big one. But perhaps it is a secret contributor to the Bored Horny problem. Isn't the gap between subject and other the engine of erotics? Here the mystery of how you are appearing in the other's world and view is short-circuited and you simply give to the other the image/stream of exactly how you desire them to see you. In some of these drawings, that effort is more obvious than others (See sub-series: "dick size man"). What we have here is heavy with pathos: it is the erotique pathétique. I'm convinced the Bored Horny series itself is far from pornographic.
Thanks so much for looking and please go fly a kite.
(click to enlarge)
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As I gathered images, I found myself more and more captivated by the ones with a palpable atmosphere of boredom. And it is important to note that this is not a jab at the subjects in the images I used. I realized I was exploring a more general problem of boredom and sexuality. It is not a solo problem. Not a male problem. Nor is it a digital problem (though I think it is becoming more and more visible through social media). And I think it's only somewhat a contemporary problem.
I am certain people around the world and throughout history have always found themselves bored horny--and I think the fact that I am fairly hopeless at drawing faces and people has helped highlight this universality. By grace (!) of my hand, these subjects become thoroughly anonymous, if they weren't already in the original images. They become stand-ins and fungible. Or, perhaps, surrogates?
The only thing that is uniquely contemporary (apart from the Ikea furniture) is the fact that so many people are now able to take pictures of themselves. Throughout time pornography has with very few exceptions preserved (as so often in prostitution) a strict gap between the sexual object and the user/gazer-cum-businessman. In Bored Horny these distinctions collapse. The one framing the image is the one in the image. And though there may be cases in which the image was not intended for a worldwide audience, they are at least being composed by the subject who has then cast it out into the void himself. This shift--that an individual create their own image of themselves as a sexual object--is a big one. But perhaps it is a secret contributor to the Bored Horny problem. Isn't the gap between subject and other the engine of erotics? Here the mystery of how you are appearing in the other's world and view is short-circuited and you simply give to the other the image/stream of exactly how you desire them to see you. In some of these drawings, that effort is more obvious than others (See sub-series: "dick size man"). What we have here is heavy with pathos: it is the erotique pathétique. I'm convinced the Bored Horny series itself is far from pornographic.
Thanks so much for looking and please go fly a kite.
(click to enlarge)