For Your Eyes Only

I have been struggling, for a few years, to find an art that is relevant and meaningful to me. I feel as though much of my work has been only superficially "me." I have been afraid to create something that speaks too readily, because I have been afraid of what it might say. With this piece, I believe that I have finally allowed myself to be honest.

The nude female body has fascinated artists since the dawn of artistic production. How could it not, when so much of — all of — life revolves around its awesome powers? And I suppose that is also inevitable that something so central to the human experience would evolve with that experience. Take the generosity of Rubens, the frivolity of Renoir; take the grotesque criticality of Schiele and the typological formality of Wesselmann; take the glamour of Newton or the filth of Richardson. Those artists, and so many among them, were compelled to capture or to create a nude for their own reality, because no other felt quite right. With this piece, I have done the same. More than that, I have created a nude to mark and to mend my dissatisfaction with all other subjects.

I have wanted to make this piece for a long time, though I may not have known it. In retrospect, my Models series foreshadows some of the themes here explored. In that series I was dealing with iconic beauties. Here, too, I have chosen an iconic beauty as my muse: Emily Ratajkowski, the famously shapely model and actress. With the models, I was asserting my authorship by editing images that already existed, and I have done the same with this photograph. Finally, in the Models series, I believe that I was attempting to counter-balance my loneliness, by surrounding myself with beauty. This piece has also emerged from a difficult time in my life, as an expression of wonder and of desire.

Where this piece departs from my previous work is that it displays none of the polish upon which I usually pride myself. The Models series could almost have been called Famous Faces, as I erased everything except the personal subject. This photograph is more narrative, and Ratajkowski, herself, is but one element in the story, albeit a major one. I preserved her context, because I wanted to preserve the mood, the intimacy. The low, warm lighting is romantic, as is, I believe the sense that Ratajkowski is not at home, but in a hotel room. Like some Usher song, it feels like she is sending this picture to someone who can't be with her that night, but who doesn't want to be alone. It is the exact setting from which one could expect a nude selfie to come. More literally, and despite extensive editing in Photoshop, this piece is marred by the digital patina that is immediately recognizable as a low quality Jpeg compression, created by a cell phone (the iPhone 6S that you see, in fact.) I would have loved to have a crystal-clear source, suitable for large-scale reproduction, but that is not the nature of the medium. That is significant in its own way: this piece is the result of amateur desire, of making do. It's my reality. 

Well, it's almost my reality. It is my reality insofar as I would be dealing with a low quality file regardless of its provenance, because I am dealing with selfies. The nude selfie is my Aphrodite of Knidos — the formal icon of my time. It is, in my opinion, the single most thrilling and validating gift that a woman can bestow upon a man; it initiates and asseverates a power play like no other. Trust me, it's easier to negotiate a facial than it is a racy photo. Of course, the irony with this image and its title, For Your Eyes Only, is that it is not part of any such transaction. It is a reinterpretation of a photograph that I simply found online. (Therein is my true reality: that I had no material of my own.) If you follow Emily Ratajkowski on social media (ironically, again, I don't), you may even believe that you have seen this picture before. Indeed, she posted one like it on 4 May 2015, before deleting it shortly after, and that was my source. But this one is mine; I made it. Authorship is important, here, because it transforms an exhibition of a simple image into a statement. Ratajkowski's original is an example of a phenomenon; she is the inspiration, but I wanted an ideal. So, I have a contemporary icon of feminine beauty. I have a nude selfie taken by the world's most popular camera and poached from social media. Most importantly, I have something that no one else has.

This piece was completed 10 May 2017. It measures 34cm x 45 cm.