My Recent Theory of My Art

So, for my last semester of college, I am only taking one art lab, Intermediate Drawing with Troy Brauntuch. He wanted us to write a paper on an artist, any artist and I chose Lisa Yuskavage. She is an artist that portrays the female figure as over-sexualized and exotic with soft colors, fantastical landscapes, and dramatically lit interiors.

I picked her because much of my art, or little sketches within the past year, have looked like hers. I really didn't find out about her until two semesters ago. I had become obsessed with pin-ups and my own body. I am overweight and to prove to myself and other that's even a fluffy female body is sexy, I would sketch out sensual pin-up poses of fluffy female figures. Yes, to me the female body is just beautiful. I do not say that because I am bi-curious or homosexual. I am completely straight, but the female body was formed to entice, lure in the male. The female body is sensual and the definition of sex!

Like I have said, I've done many sketches of the same with big pouty lips, heavy breasts, and over accented, child-bearing hips. usually the hair covers the eyes. I still have not deduced why I do such a thing. Maybe because I both think my eyes are my best feature and yet hate to hear people tell me that they love my eyes.My automatic and continuous interpretation of the female body seems to be a reflection of myself. Oversexualized or recently, deformed and combined with animal features to be made grotesque. I feel like with these representations I solve my feelings of total embarrassment, shame, guilt, and try to prove to myself that I am beautiful and sensual and pleasing to the eye.

I always revert back to the female figure and I have previously thought it was because it was easy for me to depict because I have myself as a model. But seeing Yuskavage's work made me realize that I obsess with the over-sexualized female figure and the evil female figure. The female portrayed as the bad guy. These figures are over-sexualized because of the hour glass figure that's over-sized. They're over-sized, but the self-interpretation is mean, grotesque, and horror-macabre. All of this is a reflection of myself and of my past mainly during middle schooland high school when I was obsessed with macabre and horror. It seems to pop out when I'm even a little stressed and can be seen in the "princess" paintings gone awry. Plus, it can also be seen in the self portrait of myself as a zombie.

I deal with two extremes. Sexy and scary. Even the cute has a hidden evil. If you think of it, it can also be defined by Lucifer, who we know as the Devil. He was suppose to be the most beautiful angel and yet now he is the devil. And it also stems from centuries of thoughts of thinking of the female as evil and the reason for sin (like Eve). And yet, I have not come to understand this about my work until recently. I hope to discover more as I delve more into my art and learn more about Lisa Yuskavage.