Representing the body fantastique

by Mangy

My present work involves exploring the human form and why it so fascinates us. After extensive research into various techniques, including pencil, charcoal, painting, video, photography, sound and performance, I focussed on vector-based graphics using

Photoshop and Illustrator.

This medium allows me to
print my images in large sizes – because I consider such dimen-
sions as a monumental fetishism, and the erotic aspects of the body, and of desire, are reflected in these monumental proportions.

There’s a will to submerge, to hypnotise, the viewer. But I
don’t speak to the viewer with pornographic representations because I consider eroticism as
a game of “you see me but you don’t see me”, a masquerade

and a parade of sensuality and seduction – and there’s no sed-
uction when you reveal immed-
iately the full object. I usually refer to a number of diverse artists, writers and thinkers who have treated eroticism, such as Marlene Dumas, Egon Schiele, Georges Bataille, Orlan and Barbara Kruger, among many others. It’s complicated to discuss this subject because most people don’t know the real meaning of eroticism and usually equate erotic art with pornography.

I don’t make what I do without reason – I’m fascinated as we all are by the body, by the mysteries of unconscious impulses. I’m re-
ceptive to the shapes, the lines, the light and shadow of life, and my work is centred on aesthetics, even if, for example, I am working from photographs of bondage. But my work is always evolving because I’m also a person who experiences the erotic, and as time goes by my sensibilities and points of view are changing and evolving to improve the effective-
ness of my expression.