FETISHISM

FETISHISM

Notions of ‘fetishism’ often imply ambiguity and disavowal (the simultaneous belief in the truth and falsity of something), and are used in discourses that are either about power […] or authority on to supposedly subordinate groups such as foreign objects, women, ‘degenerates’ and the insane. – Anthony Shelton.

It was this statement by Shelton that drove me to delve into the world of fetishism, a completely new area of research for myself, as well as a completely different direction for my art work to begin exploring. After a week of reading and gaining an understanding of what i had gotten myself in to, i began to feel overwhelmed, simply due to the sheer amount of disturbing imagery that is available on the internet under this subject.

However, I’m not a quitter, so i dealt with the disgusting and degrading imagery and pushed my way into different categories of fetishism, to gain a good basis for my own practice. I began researching artists who worked under the theme of erotica and found the majority to be drawing, painting and photography, i barely came across any sculptural depictions of erotica. Therefore i decided to push on to another category of sexual fantasy, as after a vast reading of fetish from the viewpoints of theorist Sigmund Freud and critical writer Laura Mulvey, i began to make my own interpretations of where a fetish derives from – a sexual fantasy which later develops a sense of curiosity resulting in the need for exploring the idea in a real life situation.

Creating work around the subject of fetish got me a lot of attention within my studio, i had people constantly asking me questions and wanting me to explain why i chose to research it.

The amount of times i found someone in my space touching my work was quite unbelievable, was not expecting it at all. But this only spurred me on to continue with my experiments with depicting a sexual fetish through the use of mixed media and photography.