Butt-on, 2022

Oil and acrylic on canvas, upholstery foam, button, spray paint, wood panel.

24 x 38,5 x 6 cm

Verb 1. butt on - lie adjacent to another or share a boundary

Often in my work, I use upholstery as a reflection of skin and flesh. Inspired by semiotics (the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation) and by French post-structuralists theorists who led the way after 1968, for example Jacques Derrida’s theory of deconstruction that challenges the idea of frozen sculpture and the notion of a direct relationship between signifier and signified, and Roland Barthes’s ‘The Death of the Author’ 1976 essay, where I am inspired by the author s notion to let go of my trauma/work.

I then metaphorically die and my piece gains a new meaning and experience for those who have acquired various works.

These writers challenged the classical approach to language and meaning in the post-structuralism and deconstruction movement.

When it comes to the human body, its representations, its limits, its symbology, how it interacts with context, my notion of upholstery as a reflection represent various aspects and values of the body.

I use my work as creative therapy. At the same time it is an expression of my queer identity and past traumas occurred when suffering from sex addiction. I let go of when the artwork is produced and put out there into the world. My work also changes per each view point of those who absorb the work.

I imbued my body with all the meanings it represents, a vehicle.

‘Butt-on’ is a life-size self representation of my own posterior.