kagablog

Accept the good, especially from those who want to share your burden.

My art has always been pretty much autobiographical and I’ve never been one for labels or classifications, but I suppose if I have to categorize my art it would be ‘confessional’. To me, the word ‘confessional’ always hauls this shadow of guilt, perhaps due to the stereotypical media images of people negotiating with god in confession booths and crooks coming clean in stuffy, smoky police chambers. But confession, really, in poetry and art, is about revelation.

Recently I started experimenting with the idea of confessional performances and in September 2011 I did a performance called “Dirty Bitch”, self- documented in four parts. I came across a space and felt the need to do a performance and only now, three months later, am I able to put down some text about it.

I was always a ‘big-boned’ girl, a tall, robust Afrikaans chick with broad shoulders, small breasts, really strong, muscular legs and big, boer-feet. My first vivid memory of feeling inadequate because of my size was when I was about twelve and one boy at school called me fat. I wasn’t fat, I was an athlete, a sprinter actually (to this day I believe it must have been these huge feet of mine that gave me incredible traction on the track) so when the boy made a remark like that I started investigating. Scrutinizing myself in the mirror, I couldn’t see where the fat was. I saw a tanned, cheeky looking being with short hair and normal features. On further investigation (studying day-to-day-school-life, or what I today would refer to as society) it did dawn upon me, that the popular girl, the girl all the boys wanted to date, was in fact a dainty stick creature and quite short, with long silky hair, ribbons, the works. The week following my sudden insight on what ‘beauty’ must be, I told the shot-put teacher that I am no longer interested in shot put (after faking some really pathetic throws), petrified to build more muscle and to be associated with those butch looking girls at the inter-school championships. Paging through my childhood, I now think it’s safe to say that my first experience of body shame was before I reached puberty.

During my high school years I had a lot of interest from the boys, definitely not due to my non-existent dainty figure, nor my non-existent petite little feet, petite little toes, long silky hair and delicate personality. I attracted the boys because I was a bad girl, a naughty girl, showing no respect for rules and teachers, getting drunk any waking minute possible. I wore my hair short, often shaved, and I smoked behind the tuck shop during every break. Growing up, becoming a woman, I constantly wanted to be skinnier, smaller, and more “beautiful”. Although I had boys writing me love letters, telling me how beautiful I was, the story my mirror told was of a different nature. In my eyes, the compliments were nothing more than pathetic attempts to get into my panties.

I met my husband when I was eighteen and I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for twelve years. My husband is one of the rare ones, a nappy-changing hands-on father who constantly makes me feel desired and appreciated. I’m not exactly a ‘normal’ woman and he has been more than accommodating throughout the years where it concerns my artistic ventures into the unknown. We were meant to be together and I realized this the very day we met. The first thing I said to him was “I’m going to change the world” and he replied “Oh, I know you are.” It became even clearer that we were destined to be together the day he said ‘you have awesome feet’.

In 2005 I started becoming really active online and I soon discovered how easy it is to become who you want to be on the web. From the very first day we had internet in the house, I realized that my relationship with the web wasn’t going to turn out to be a healthy one. After years of creating drawings and paintings and keeping them stacked in drawers and under beds, I could finally exhibit my art instantly by posting it on art sites and blogs. I started becoming quite addicted to the attention I received through commentary and e- mails surrounding me and my art. Inevitably, along with this new found online ‘quick fix’ came the freedom to explore a degree of exhibitionism that seemed to have been dormant in me all along. I was always really honest with my husband about what I put out there and all he ever said was “be careful what you put out there”. I assumed he was talking about my physical nudity that might one day attract some psychos…but now I realize that it is a lot more than a naked body I put out there.

My art is confessional and I bare it all. I’ve never had issues with nudity. I often use nudity in my art and it gives me a sense of freedom. When I started experimenting with photographic self -portraiture, I quickly discovered how easy it is to make yourself look ‘beautiful’. You start knowing which are your best angles and your best attributes and you can focus on those elements and really get your best shot. I’ve never gone to that extent, but you can even pull out the old Photoshop and lighten those little fat roles and wrinkles if you please. I must have taken, if I have to guess, over ten thousand self- portraits in my life so far, carefully scrutinizing myself, finding myself fascinated by certain things about my body and face, pleased with some things and unfortunately, also somewhat repulsed by some. (When I used to spend hours on Facebook, my profile pictures used to change constantly.)

When I started experimenting with all these self- portraits, I knew that, contrary to what people might believe on the offset, my self-portraiture has nothing to do with narcissism. Each photo becomes a little mirror and if you find yourself in front of your own reflection all the time the assumption can easily be that you must be completely egotistical. It has to do with ego alright, but in my case I believe it could be the opposite of the assumed self-love associated with taking pictures of yourself. A deep seeded feeling of inadequacy perhaps?

I recently met up with one of my good friends from South Africa, who used to do a lot of modeling. She’s been struggling with depression for the past few years and I was shocked to find her in a very vulnerable state. The last time I saw her before this visit about four years ago, she was really skinny, far too skinny for her bone structure. She was doing a lot of photo shoots and catalogues and one day when I bought a pie to eat and offered her a bite she frowned at me, nibbling on a low fat biltong stick, saying “Are you crazy? I can’t eat stuff like that!” When I saw her now, I noticed that she has gained quite a bit of weight and she told me that she has quit modeling completely. She told me that she went to a doctor who asked her, if you can give yourself a score out of ten, what would it be? Now, I know my friend well, and I know she could not have gone to the doctor’s office looking shabby. On her way to the doctor’s she probably got a few whistles and stares and open mouths, because not only is she naturally gorgeous, when she leaves the house we are talking layers and layers of concealer, base, eye shadow, mascara, lipstick, hot- ironed hair, beautiful clothes, probably high heels….and the score she gave herself out of ten was “three”. This is a girl married to a guy that will lick the ground she walks on and will stick by her no matter to what level her depression and inferiority complex takes her.

When I started reading about self-objectification, a lot of the text focused on single women who were not in a relationship, but wanted to be in one. If you’re lonely and you’re out on the prowl for a nice guy to sweep you off your feet, self-objectification seems like a natural thing to do. But there are women out there, (including myself), who find themselves in a permanent, stable relationship with men who worship them and still self-objectify.

Most women go through numerous pregnancies and they feel and witness their bodies changing. I had three pregnancies so far, one natural birth and two Cesareans. Women gain weight and deal with stretching skin, their hips become larger and to some it can be alarming to see their bodies change shape to accommodate the growth of the life inside them. Even if you use the miraculous Bio-oil to prevent stretch marks and lose the weight after birth, Cesarean sections, for instance, damages the abdominal tissue permanently and abdominal flaccidity is often inevitable no matter how many sit-ups you do. Besides, we don’t all have Victoria Beckham’s bank account status and therefor the means to go for tummy tucks after each pregnancy. Women tend to reminisce about their figures prior to pregnancy and often they look for ways to feel desirable again. Robert Goldman writes “There is the mundane psychic terror associated with not receiving “looks” of admiration — i.e. of not having others validate one’s appearance. A similar sense of terror involves the fear of ‘losing one’s looks’ — the quite reasonable fear that ageing will deplete one’s value and social power. A related source of anxiety involves fears about “losing control” over body weight and appearance. . . “

I started exploring with self-objectification in what I considered a “controlled environment” (being in the comfort and privacy of my home, safely behind a screen). I always oppressed the little voice of reason inside of me whispering warnings, after all, it was me who created the images and me who ultimately decided which imagery to put where. The misconception that the cyber-world is not ‘real’ also facilitates the process of exhibiting uninhibitedly. I was convinced I was fully in control and the whole online experience surrounding my erotic photography became a game; an exciting pass time where I would carefully observe the reaction of the viewer whilst thoroughly enjoying being the object of desire. There are few women on this planet who don’t enjoy being desired. We put on make- up, we buy those shoes, we sparkle with jewelry and we love to feel like goddesses.

Thing is, certain contemporary media is trying to make women believe that being the object of desire can actually be a form of feminism. In Lexie Kite’s “From Objectification to Self-Subjectification: Victoria’s Secret as a Do-It-Yourself Guide.” the author critises Victoria’s Secret’s warped media messages: “Where once sexualized representations of women in the media presented them as passive, mute objects of an assumed male gaze, today women are presented as active, desiring sexual subjects who choose to present themselves in an objectified manner because it suits their “liberated” interests to do so. In the case of Victoria’s Secret, a push-up bra and thigh-high boots are made to stand for “empowerment” in a way that objectifies feminism and femininity simultaneously through its commodification of the female form”…” Feminist values include self-definition, control over one’s body and personal freedom and VS represents a severe distortion of feminism – a faux form of power – proclaiming women can have it all if they can be it all. “

Christin Bowman on the Spark research blog, remarks on the new ‘sexual empowerment media images’:

“Well I’m not falling for it. Real sexual empowerment isn’t about what you look like. It doesn’t require stick-thinness or exhibitionism. Real sexual empowerment is about how women feel in their bodies. It’s about knowing what you want (and don’t want) and not being afraid to let your partner know. It’s about sexual pleasure. It’s about having fun in your body and loving your body and really feeling your body. When the media can figure out how to show us this kind of healthy female sexuality, I’ll be glad to call it sexual empowerment too.”

I did realize, throughout my online activity, that it was a tightrope I was walking on. I loved the tension of being the puppeteer of my body images and it brought me a feeling of sexual empowerment. I didn’t realize that this empowerment was actually a sham. I sensed there was nothing honest in what I was doing and I ignored all the signs that I was in fact losing myself; losing the real me in the process. I just kept walking the tightrope, loving the exhilaration of my new found “freedom”. The thing with tightrope-walking is, it’s really dangerous and the possibility of falling flat on your face always exists.

Soon I found myself in a real sticky situation. I realized that I’ve gone too far and that my whole power-game turned on me and blew up in my face. I found that, whilst I was roleplaying a woman who was in control and fully enjoying the power surrounding being desired, the real me have been completely and unfairly suppressed. I acted as if the real me wasn’t good enough, embarrassed by the real me, I became somebody else and in the process I betrayed myself. Like Lexie Kite says in her Victoria Secret essay, “When the desire only to be desired is a woman’s primary objective, she loses herself, her control, and her freedom.”

I spent some time feeling utterly ashamed of what I’ve been doing, not because of morals or guilt or because of a certain betrayal I felt due to being in a monogamous relationship…but mainly because of the self-betrayal. I thrive on not telling lies and producing brutally honest art, when in the mean time I’ve played a role that I now realize, that was a complete lie. I guess I felt dirty, not because of actions as such, but because I was lying to myself all this time.

Soon after my realization I showed up at the door of my friend (a feminist Wicca practitioner) after shaving my hair off. Completely bald I stood before her and she looked at me with a gaze that silently said “only a man could have done this”. She turned to me and said “So what happened? Women usually shave their hair after break-ups.” I didn’t know it then, but I now realize I did in fact go through a break up, divorcing an empty shell (object) that pretended to be me.

So I thought to myself: Where do I go from here? Do I keep my hair shaved, refuse to put on make- up, go butch? Do I become an active feminist lashing out at men and ‘weak’ women who self-objectify? How would I reflect this transition I felt coming on, how would I portray what I was feeling, how would I find release?

In “Dirty Bitch” I found myself in an empty house in Maputo, Mozambique, acting out what I was feeling at that time due to my new found realizations about self-objectification. I was feeling deep seeded feelings of humiliation and did the performance instinctively, without any premeditation. As a confessional artist, I don’t believe in much premeditation, because in a way, premeditation is a lie. I loved the setting of decay, the room I used had broken windows, really dirty walls and the floor was full of years and years of dirt. I spray-painted the words “dirty bitch” on the wall. I rolled around in the dirt and rubbed myself in it and got really dirty, as dirty as I could. In the middle of the performance I covered up the words on the wall with white paint, trying to hide it with quick gestures. The final part of the performance is where I grab a bucket with water and try to scrub the dirt off me. I recently discovered the power of performances; it has a very profound effect on me. As a confessional artist I find performance even more immediate than working in other media and the release is even greater.

I love being a woman. I embrace all aspects of being a female. I have two daughters, two beautiful daughters and I need to give them tools to be themselves in a world where being yourself doesn’t always have “the desirable effect.” I’m not sure how I would equip them to deal with issues females have to deal with, but I am sure when the time comes I will find ways to do it. In the meantime all I can do, really, is produce art…and confess.

“To others, the universe seems decent because decent people have gelded eyes. That is why they fear lewdness…”

“But as of then, no doubt existed for me: I did not care for what is known as “pleasures of the flesh”, because they are really insipid. I cared only for what is classified as “dirty”. On the other hand, I was not even satisfied with the usual debauchery, because the only thing it dirties is debauchery itself, while, in some way or the other, anything sublime and perfectly pure is left intact by it.”

georges bataille
the story of the eye

This is my latest sketchbook (some of her intimate pages opened up wide on the blog) I think she’s really a beaut. She’s a spiritual collaboration, cut and pasted together with uninhibited experience. I was going to burn her, I usually get those urges, especially when the works are fresh, don’t know why, but I then decided to preserve it by giving it to somebody else. This sketchbook just reminded me again of how wonderful it is to have a portal. This book was a gift sent to me by someone and when it reached me I could breathe again. It was as if I was in a prison cell and somebody came by to give me a huge hole in the wall, or the key for the gate. I become consumed by the heart-disease called love sometimes, and this was one of those times. At times pain (mostly self-inflicted) becomes a tool to work with. I got really rough with her (my book), tore the pages, splashed it, drown it, dried her, just to drown her again, pasting, cutting, tearing, ripping…It all remind me once again of my favourite ‘type ‘of art, Art Brut. Jaen Dubuffet had it right when he said screw traditional standards of aesthetics, that conventional ideas of beauty should be subordinate to an authentic and humanist approach, with special reference to the art of prisoners, mental patients and children. So yeah, my sketchbook might not be ‘pretty’, but she’s a beaut.

Lyrics by Erica Jong

My love is too much–
it embarrasses you–
blood, poems, babies,
red needs that telephone
from foreign countries,
black needs that spatter
the pages
of your white papery heart.

You would rather have a girl
with simpler needs:
lunch, sex, undemanding
loving,
dinner, wine, bed,
the occasional blow-job
& needs that are never
red as gaping wounds
but cool & blue
as television screens
in tract houses.

Oh my love,
those simple girls
with simple needs
read my books too.

They tell me they feel
the same as I do.

They tell me I transcribe
the language of their hearts.
They tell me I translate
their mute, unspoken pain
into the white light
of language.

Oh love,
no love
is ever wholly undemanding.
It can pretend coolness
until the pain comes,
until the first baby comes,
howling her own infant need
into a universe
that never summoned her.

The love you seek
cannot be found
except in the white pages
of recipe books.

It is cooking you seek,
not love,
cooking with sex coming after,
cool sex
that speaks to the penis alone,
& not the howling chaos
of the heart.

I find torment so part of me. I do blame the moon, blame god. The currents take me and I’m enslaved to this force that makes my limbs shiver. I live by it, swear by it, there must be truth in agony. I do find moments of release where I sort of faint into a deliverance of being only to wake up on the edge again, the wind creeping up from the abyss and touching my shins, my thighs: reading my sins. So should I brake this mirror then, to test the flow of things, create a parable which my children will carry along with the weight of my art. Spit in superstition’s face.

I struggle with the idea of substituting the tangible. Morally, I tell myself I have to reconnect with that which smells and sweats. The net has become an integral part of my creative process, I can’t create without it anymore. I also feel online exhibitions have a lot more integrity than the ascetic white cubes and the price tags and the whispers. I wonder why physical gallery spaces even exist…but when I do manage to return to the corporeal dimension, I am ecstatic about the vividness of five senses. It’s the pace of today’s world that makes us incapable of ‘feeling’ and artwork, sitting on a gallery bench for hours staring at a piece. Online you’ll never see a ‘please don’t touch ‘ sign, or ‘silence please’.The internet is creating senses we didn’t know existed in order to substitute the senses which the screen does not excite. I’m not sure which dimension is in fact more sordid.

more here: http://revolvermaedle.wordpress.com/