Yeah, um, this is an interesting take from this particular student. I’ll let the artist description give you some better insight into her thinking. Obviously this was done fairly recently with the crab in the lower corner.
Feminist theorist Barbara Creed notes that “man has erected a series of taboos against woman, all of which relate to her sexual functions; menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, lying-in (interior genitalia; possibly linked to castration anxiety), and, most importantly, sexual intercourse itself.” The feminine is placed on the abject side of the masculine symbolic order, and thus poses as a threat to it. The type of horror I use in my artwork directly targets men by using innate images of a specific type of gender related disgust.
The exploitation of the male form in my work functions as a reversal of the socially normative sexual objectification of woman. Throughout history men have used their sexual exploits to raise themselves in their own minds an the minds of their peers, however, social constructs have made impossible for women to use sex in the same way. In my work, men are literally objectified; their body parts are transformed into accessories, toys, and decor. Though initially, my work may come off as misandrist, it is actually intended to be gender neutral; unlike misogyny, misandry never had an institutional manifestation (i.e.: witch trials, The Malleus Maleficarum); it exists in my work as a karmic equalizer.
I find that socially aberrant behavioral extremes are becoming a part of the culture of my generation (early Millennial), and is likely a response to the variety of content the internet has made available (i.e.; snuff, pornography, bestiality), and the way the internet has created an accessibility and the illusion of ubiquity to this type of content. I allude to contemporary pornography by eroticizing my female figures and male appendages and place stereotypical erotic imagery amongst biologically offensive and disruptive imagery to heighten the viewer’s disgust reaction.
[Deadspin]
