Dorothy Iannone

I was told about this artist after my assessment and I’ve been obsessed with her work ever since. Her paintings are as disconcerting for their shrill blend of the naive and the hippyish, tantric art and pop, as they are for the riots of ass-wiggling exhibitionism and androgyny. The penises come in all shapes and sizes, and the fattened labia of her women are as rounded as peaches or a man’s testicles. Yet somehow, all this sex neither arouses nor titillates. It is repetitive, I suppose in the way most sex is. I don’t think she intends for her work to turn us on, with her use of childlike and innocent style.

Celebrating matriarchy and men, solitude and togetherness, and art as exercises of freedom, Iannone depicts herself as powerful and submissive, goddess and “whore”. Iannone’s feminism has always been nuanced; not for her the separatism of 1970s radicalism. And Iannone obviously likes men. “You will not be vanquished although you are a man,” reads one of many annotations. “Centuries of gazing at your fragility have augmented my love for your sex.”

I’ve used her art to create a few more shaped paintings that I believe mimic her colourfulness and playfulness, as well as holding a feminist erotic sense to them. I used parts of the body that are deemed sexual and that are often censored, either on television or in public, such as at schools. I previously had been painting carefully and by adding as much detail as I could, but after looking at her work, I concentrated on using more shapes and colour rather than the finer details. I believe this work will lead the final pieces for the next assessment.