Carnal Portal Doors

Carnal Portal Doors is a woodcut formed of two plates which will also become the two doors of a three plate print. I have designed the doors in such a way that they can form a composition on their own. When the middle plate is finished, it can be added to form a new composition made up of three plates, that looks like a wooden altar. I finished this two-plate version of the doors to be exhibited at the A Matter Of. stand in the Other Art Fair 24-27 April 2014, which we funded via kickstarter.

The two scrolls at the top read 'Creatio' and 'Sacrificium', creation and sacrifice in Latin. These are titles to each door, the two sides of life/death, and also the two sides of the reproductive cycle: birth and menstruation. The circle at the top, in the middle, represents a uterus with its vaginal opening, from which a skull and a baby come out symbolising these two religious themes in correlation to the female cycle.

On the left God, the Supreme Anatomist extracts Eve from the side of Adam, 'And He opened the flesh'. On the right, Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac: 'Take thy only begotten son/ Isaac/ and offer hin in sacrifice/ I will bless thy seed'. The quotes on this print are inspired by the Bible.

Carnal Portal Doors measures 50x82cm, and the altar will measure 100x82cm. The image below shows the three plates, before any of them had been carved.

LA QUE LLEVA LA CRUZ

La que lleva la Cruz is my lattest woodcut, where I merge several symbols I have been working with. My prints are usually much more thought through but I made this one more as an experiment, to try something bold and graphic. At a cafe, with my dearest friend Gaby, we thought for a name for hours, something that sounded spanish, enigmatic, poetic and sounded like an old saying... voila! As often happens, our conversation sprung in different directions, changing subject several times, and as she told me a short story, I knew that title was perfect. Her grandmother taught her a trick to differentiate the male ♂ and female ♀ symbols, remembering that the female is that who wears the cross, 'la que lleva la cruz', metaphorically carrying the cross, (as Christ) that is, the burden.

Similarly the hand wears a cross, tattooed perhaps, and the menstrual symbols and the snake refer to that burden (which takes many forms for many women).

This image is from the first prints, the final edition is of 28 and is a darker red, with the white hand placed vertically on the paper.

Incredulity

I made this woodcut for the WellPressed exhibition at St-Martins-in-the-Field Crypt. As I was printing alot of woodcuts at work, I thought I wanted to try and make one myself. Although I had done wood carving before for a sculpture, little did I know how time consuming it was... After many hours of daylight and days which turned into night, it was completed.

I always conceived it in red. Incredulity blends Christian imagery with a disguised self-portrait. The stretching apart of the side wound refers to the ecorches in anatomical illustrations, that lift their skin like a dress to reveal their insides. The two accentuated lips bordering the bleeding cut let drops stream down to wet this androgynous Jesus in a most particular place.

Latex Mask Surgery

The patient, Ramon Eding, arrived on the agreed day of his appointment, bringing with him traces of an old face. The two in-house surgical artists Paul Wye and myself attended his requirements, to reconstruct a new full head second skin using latex. There where some issues affecting the comfortability of the patient, regarding impaired vision, breathing problems and breathing ammonia, which prevented the completion of the surgery around the facial region. The nursing post operatory period was brief and the results satisfactory.

This intensive mask making day was fun and gave me some ideas about using latex as second skin for the head, and other body parts, perhaps even full body. The texture of this material, it's flexibility and the mat finish with talcum powder, resembles human skin very closely.

Collage

Collage made out of prints, photographs, cut-outs, postcards (some from Emma Pegg's great etchings). (not for sale)

ABRAHAM or the sacrifice of the son

Yesterday, Wednesday 29th of June, we had Symposium II, where MA students presented their practice in the form of 5 minute presentations. I decided to do a live performance instead, partly motivated by the lack of time to show and explain a whole body of work.
This was Abraham or The Sacrifice of the Son, performed in the lecture theatre, infront of a small audience, lit by a slide proyector with red. I used body paint and latex on my chest and abdomen, of which all the trials can be seen in the pictures. I finally mixed an organic, non-toxic pigment with olive oil to acquire a deep, dark, shiny red that resembled blood; and liquid latex layers with talcum powder to whitten the underlying red (since latex is almost completely transparent). I incorporated a wound-shaped metal etching plate, with underlying red, and covered by a latex second-skin.

Script
I walk to the stage with a surgical blade in one hand and a big scrapper tool in the other. Once in the stage, I walk towards the edge and stop, to 'cut' my mouth open as I slide the red-stained tool across my lips. Then drop the heavy tool to the ground. I proceed unbuttoning my medical top and unzipping my white trousers, to reveal my body to the audience. I take my top off and slowly cut all the way down to get the plate out. Holding the plate as if stabbing myself, then as a baby, and finally raise it above my head to let it slip out of my grasp and die.

At work

Thanx to Catarina for these pictures of me inking up some plates at the printmaking workshop. I am always printing with red carmine ink now, which is a very distinct deep cold red, that for me is that particular tone of red that refers to blood, not bright red warm oxygenated blood, but that blood that runs through the veins, that blood that exits the body, the colour of bloodshed, of sacrifice, of menstrual blood...
This pictures show very well the step that seemed so natural, from the printmaking process, tools and wear to the allegory of operating and wounding the body.

Hidden Anatomy Work in Progress

Preparing plates for the series The Hidden Anatomy of the Vagina.

Tarot cards

After making these plates I have thought about using them as tarot cards in my next performance. Tarot cards refer to my practice in several ways that attract me to them:

1. Medieval imagery and woodcuts : the earliest known tarot cards are from the 15th century, named the Visconti-Sforza 'tarocchi' decks, reproduced in 1975 as the Pierpont Morgan-Bergano Tarocchi deck. Early tarot packs are often medieval woodcuts.
2. The presence of godesses and female empowered figures: like the Empress, the High Priestess/Popess and Strenght/Fortitude.
3. The rich symbolism: the macrocosm view, the spiritual realm, the presence of key Christian symbols (like the chalice), the concentration of symbolic meanings that would be interesting to analise in relation to the body and menstrual symbolism.
4. The ritualistic and performative in relation to the cards in divinatory practices.

Reference: The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Stuart R. Kaplan

The Anatomy of the Hidden Vagina

Some of the small plates are going to become part of a greater composition, titled The Anatomy of the Hidden Vagina, were I explore medieval imagery, medical and religious depictions of wounds, dissections, and cuts, in relation to menstrual symbolism and scientific discourse. Paired up, the image on the left is the creation of Eve missing the opening, and the image on the right provides an ironically scientific analisis of it in relation to female genitalia, it reads: "Ectopic pregnancy in thoracic cavity/vaginoplasty and birth canal reconstruction".

Taking things personally

Red Lips proyect / Political Statement / The Personal is Political / Identity Politics / Womanhood / Femininity / Gender / Essentialist Biology / Social Construction / Feminism / Female Body Experience / Vulva Art

28 portraits of women's red lips as vaginas involves addressing the collective 'woman'. The gesture of using red liptick can be for some women empowering, a visual sign that is an unclear statement but that nevertheless catches atenttion, underlines their femininity and presents it in a public way. Is painting your lips red an oppressive sign that marks you as a sex object for the male gaze? Is it a beauty or fashion ritual that celebrates aesthetic pleasure or an insecure need to make yourself look beautiful to be worthy? Or can it be an empowering public expression of your female body experience that implies assertion? Ultimately what red lips mean is defined by the wearer and by the reader. The reader can have a strong role in defining you, specially if it is a mayority, and if they hold onto strong social stereotypes. You will feel like others define your red, what it is for. Does the wearer have the same power? Can your atittude, body language, speech and, in general, public presence actively define you?

The 28 prints are not as ambiguous as the real gesture, since they direct the meaning towards the menstruating vagina through the impression of the physicality of the lips, turning them much more into the body realm through the direct imprint process, and also with the reference to the days of the fertile cycle. Of course here the artist's statement and art practice also plays a role.

I find more and more the idea of collective (and) portraiture problematic. The fact that I define the meaning of the artwork implies that I have a role in defining the portrayed subject, as 'woman empowered by a public sign of her body experience'. The subject of my work, the collective women, is not self-defining through it.
On the other hand, I propose a project in which 28 women actively participate if they feel engaged and identified with the idea... and I do not claim (does my artwork?) to represent a universal true womanhood.
On the other hand, I do want to address empowerment, and I do want to address oppression, that has social reality for many women.

Puting the project into a well-defined personal space, i.e. by not representing other women, just me; seems a solution that allows me to adress identity, gender and female empowerement from an individual standpoint. From personal experience one can also address social issues... But the use/participation of other women means more debate around the issues I'm interested in.

Why some women wear red lipstick

In creating art that deals with femininity, as with Red Lips, I have found that I am dealing with issues of female identity. For instance, to pose the question why women paint their lips red, I am assuming that to paint one's lips red is a thing women do, generalising and incorporating red lipstick into female identity, as if every woman did it. It is defenetively how it is perceived socially, however when looking at this gesture in isolation, we can take the chance to actually realise our assumptioms surrounding it. Some drag queens paint their lips red, some clowns paint their lips red, some prostitues paint their lips red, some lesbians paint their lips red, some transsexuals paint their lips red... Indeed some people paint their lips red, and being a woman and/or presenting oneself as femenine plays an important role in this ritual.

However to take red lips as a universal symbol for womanhood is problematic because it reiterates gender-sex structures, it assumes that women do feminine things.

For these reasons I think it will be interested to broaden the approach to creating the 28 prints, not portraying exclusively women but subjects that want to explore their relationship between this gesture, gender and their own identities.

To Kiss You Better, Jessica Lagunas

Para Besarte Mejor (To Kiss You Better, 2003) is a video by Jessica Lagunas in which the artist paints her lips red over and over again for almost an hour. Other videos based on repetition of female beauty rituals are To See You Better 2003 (applying mascara), To Caress You Better 2005 (red nail polish) and Return to Puberty 2005 (plucking pubic hair).

"In the name of beauty most women will put on makeup, do their hair, nails, depilate, diet, fix their noses and breasts. Although few women will reach society's beauty ideals, they will sculpt their bodies as needed. In this video I play along with women's beauty rituals performing them in exaggerated ways to reflect the pressures imposed by today's society. (...) questioning our attraction to makeup and its power of seduction. Its title was inspired by the Red Riding Hood tale." Jessica Lagunas.

Jessica Lagunas frames so the red lipstick within the broader context of makeup and female beauty obsession. She acknowledging the sexual connotations of red and presents its use in beauty rituals as a sign of conforming to social norms that constrain women and encourage them to look in a particular dictated way (by "others", pressumable a male-dominated society).

Why women paint their lips red V

About the use of lipstick in American culture during World War II,
"Wearing makeup during World War II sometimes indicated overly sexual, manipulated women (...) For others, makeup suggested a woman intimately bound to sex, prostitution and rape, for whom lipstick signified their regrettable victimization, or an iconic woman who was more advertisement for a well-wrought nation than real, vocal flesh and spirit. But there was, I contend, another woman in this wartime picture, evoked in the words of army nurse Ruth Haskell. Makeup could be a sign of female agency, that included sexual power and citizenship and as such was disruptive of wartime's masculine codes of power."

Making Up for War: Sexuality and Citizenship in Wartime Culture, Page Dougherty Delano.

Why women paint their lips red IV

"Red is the colour is a series of portraits of women wearing the blood of their period as lipstick. Whilst in Western society menstrual blood is considered a taboo, ancient tribes venerated it and by applying on or around the mouth to signal the arrival of menstruate, made lipstick one of the first cosmetics." Ingrid Berthon-Moine.

Why women paint their lips red III

"According to a study, a woman's lips are the most attractive part of her body. Especially if she's wearing red lipstick. Scientists found that in the ten seconds after meeting a lady for the first time, the average chap will spend more than half his time gazing at her mouth. If she's applied lipstick, he'll find it difficult to look away, with a dash of pink holding his attention for 6.7 seconds and red keeping him fixated for 7.3 seconds."

"Dr Geoff Beattie, who led the research, said 'This study proves that lips present one of the most sensual aspects of a woman's body and play a critical role in human sexual attraction. Full and red lips combined deliver the perfect pout to achieve male fixation"

The lips have it: Research shows men are drawn to a woman's pout more than any other facial feature, Daily Mail Online.

Why women paint their lips red II

"According to some anthropologists, the lips are similar in appearance to the labia, because they flush red and swell when they are aroused, a possible conscious or subconscious reason why women in many cultures make their lips even redder with lipstick."

Wikipedia, Lipstick, from A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman.

Why women paint their lips red I

"Even women who don't wear makeup wear lipstick. It's the one cosmetic we can't live without- and can't seem to get enough of. (...) It has the highest usage of any cosmetic product."
..."when food and other daily necessities were scarce, women still found money for the single cosmetic that would boost their morale."

"It makes a woman feel like a woman"
"I never leave home without my swiss army knife and a tube of lipstick. As far as I'm concerned it's the only two weapons a woman needs. The knife I seldom use- the presence in my bag is mostly symbolic. The lipstick, on the other hand, truly empowers me. (...) Just try this test: at the end of a meal in a restaurant, ansentmindedly reach for your lipstick, uncap it with a quicknudge, twist the wand out of its cartridge, and stare at it briefly. You'd think you pulled a gun. All eyes are on you."

"Silenced for centuries, women have learned to wield their lipsticks as a substitute for speech."

(Introduction, Veronique Vienne, Read My Lips, A Cultural History of Lipstick, Meg Cohen Ragas & Karen Kozlowski.)

Red Lips

Red Lips will be a series of 28 red lips gently pressed on paper, portraying 28 females.

women
powerful
sexual
holly
deathly
vital
colour
blood

Women wearing red lipstick. Perceived as a sign to attract the oppositte sex, a way of marking themselves as sexual objects. It could be a feminist statement that glorifies their bloody menstrual lips.

If you want to participate in this project and be one of the 28 women please contact me via email.

Embody

Portrait of a Head

Matters of the Chest

Womb

Abdomen

Where My Legs Take Me

Embody bridges biology and subjective experience in the way it represents the person. Thoughts and emotions are attached to body parts as in a scientific illustration, to reflect upon the way anatomy presents to us the 'truth' of 'the' human body, a universal ideal of perfect bio-chemical machine detached from the self. Embody in contrast represents the individual body, the self understood through the flesh, underlining subjective bodily experience and giving it value and meaning as a tool for self-awareness and wellbeing.

This five images (drawing, collage, etching and tracing paper) are a starting point for a project for the mental health research centre BRC Nucleus. They are inspired by recent mental health research that underlines the importance of emotional, spiritual and social factors in dealing with patients.

This project aims to place mental health within the person, encouraging an understanding of psychological disstress as concerning crucial human issues. The way we give meaning to ourselves, the way we experience through our bodies, how we relate to others and how we make sense of our surroundings.