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FROM VENUS TO PENIS
As an art student I looked at a lot of old and new masters' paintings of nude women and I was inspired by them. I frequently depict nude females, and most often it is myself. A male artist uses the nude female as a muse, to demonstrate his relationship to nude female forms. By focusing on outer reality he reveals his inner one. I use myself as a muse and nude model as a means of looking inward. But I follow a male tradition of ogling when I paint a nude female, which does nothing to correct the glut of nude female images.
My paintings are about giving myself permission to look at everything, within and without, and as such they are a source of personal revelation. I delve into my own nude image to gather information and understanding. I experiment with ways of perceiving myself.
Pregnant, I painted myself in a bathtub a la Frida Kahlo's painting gazing at her feet in her tub (fig. 1). Only I hung a mirror and painted myself half submerged, flushed from the heat of the water, with my halfway bloated stomach, pendulous breasts, huge nipples, lyrical labia, unaverted appraising face. A curator told me that it was hard for him to look at. It swells out at one, features genitals and doesn't look away.
My painting, Aura (fig. 2), is another self-portrait. In it I surrounded myself with all the elements in my life that want to put me in...