The significance of the materials used in my pieces

The materials I’ve used, I believe, are very important to the pieces I’ve made. I chose to use a combination of fabrics, such as velvet, silk and lace, alongside clay, paint and wood. These contrasting materials heavily link to Goddesses and Monsters, as well as Caland’s Self Portrait. They link by using Ovid’s myth of Pygmalion and constructions of the feminine ideal. Themes of gender construction and embodiment identified in the poem and investigates themes of sculptural transformation, corporeality and the desire for idealised somatic forms. The myth offers insights therefore into key tropes relating to gender configuration and discourses of materiality when creating/fashioning representations in visual culture. By dressing up my vaginas with fabrics that conceal and reveal at the same time, especially soft fabrics that are very inviting to the viewer, I create a contrasting piece. The contrast is in how vaginas are seen so much in porn but not in everyday life, thus is hidden and is distracted by other comforting parts of the body, such as legs and breasts. I chose to make vaginas in all shapes and forms and used fabrics to create a sense of irony and humour to how we dress our bodies up to distract the male gaze from how ‘horrifying’ vaginas are. I’m also looking into how I might incorporate vagina plastic surgery, such as cutting off the labia in order to create a ‘tidy’ vagina.

The wood and the clay offers insight to how vaginas really are; the clay creates folds and an almost realistic texture to the vagina, while the wood supports it all, signifying it’s strength.