It occurred to me one day to combine my mosaic designs with a nude model. I was riding my bicycle by the Coronado Mall, and I got pummeled by several gripping ideas. As is often the case when inspiration hits, I wasn’t prepared to record those ideas, as I didn’t even have my handy pocket-sized notebook I almost always carry around in my back pocket. You see, I don’t carry it around when I’m exercising for obvious reasons.
The idea was so clear to me. I saw the mosaic patterns I use often in other works hollowed out, and a layer of blue and purple colors behind them. It was all formed in the silhouette of a woman’s figure. From 2009 to about 2012, I had gone to a few drawing groups here in town where artists would get together and draw and paint a model we would pay to sit for us for about 3 hours a night. The piece I shared previous to this blog post was from one of the hundreds of drawings I made of nudes during that period. I was not satisfied with that amalgamation however. I knew that this would be an idea I would be challenged to master.
There’s a term I’ve recently been revisiting and filling out with more meaning for myself. The word is euphemism. This picture is an image illustrating a euphemism and pareidolia; it is also a suggestive revelation of how subliminal imagery can play on one’s mind if only the figure was just a few more degrees blended into the background and abstractified.
Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon, illusion, or vague visual stimulus that leads a person to perceive something significant, or clear to them. It really is a psychological agent that has just enough ad hoc data to trigger a previously installed mental template in a person. Meanwhile, the pareidolic source has enough plausible deniability to claim unintended randomness.
A euphemism is a less potent, blunt, or crude word used in place of a more potent, blunt, or crude word. In my opinion, a euphemism is a way of avoiding the naked truth. For example, you could say something like “I’m not feeling well,” instead of “I feel like shit” in order to not offend the sensibilities of a person who asked. Most seduction material involves using figurative masks, denying feelings, and covering up intentions. The truth is somehow threatening to many people, and euphemisms can be used as ways to bridge communication to people who would otherwise be turned off by the message. In other words, rhetoric.
The model I used to fill out the right hand side with her alluring beauty is confounded with the drawing I made and shared with you already titled Exoculation. She is wearing a see-through form fitting body suit plicated with elastic black thread. I used just enough skin from her body to suggest that she is nude, but not so much that a viewer can see that sort of detail completely. It’s suggestive. I’m playing with the tension between hiding and showing in this image.
Meanwhile, the rich detail is enough to encourage appreciation and exploration of the areas harmonized with one another through painstaking repetitions. I had originally started making an image using two images of the model: one on the left and one on the right of the picture, resembling a William Blake drawing, but using contemporary digital media as the means for expression. I wanted to employ some text of some poetic ramblings I’d been typing out lately. While I do have that image stored away for future work in applying text to, I fleshed out this image you see here as a completed work for viewers to enjoy.
Art of eVan 