The use of excessive violence

That's it.  I really can't let this idea of 'cosmetic excess', aka 'sploshing' go.   I was hesitant, and I was also scared, that once I started indulging there would be no going back but after watching Scottee's latest video - 'Violence', I have begun to see the light.  A little bit of what you fancy can do you good.  Now where is that jar of liquid foundation....?

Paper cuts

By playing with the page and not the body Damien Blottiere works as an artist but thinks like a surgeon, cutting and pasting the face and body and constructing new forms of appreciating beauty.  While this may not be a novel technique, what makes Blottiere present a unique perspective is his understanding of the fashioned body. This shift in responding to we how regard future bodies plays with our obsession with beauty, while notions of what we can begin to expect to achieve through cosmetic surgery are reminiscent of artist Paddy Hartley's 'Face corsets', created to temporarily simulate the effects of cosmetic surgery.

Splish Splosh

It was performance artist Scottee who introduced me to the term sploshing last year, it is a form of sexual fetishism where a person becomes aroused when substances are deliberately and generously applied to the naked skin, predominantly the face, or to the clothes people are wearing.  These substances tend to be food based.  I never really understood its attraction, but after watching  Reed and Rader's 'Cupcake Girl' I now get it, and I am surprised I didn't see the links to make-up earlier.  Gareth Pugh's 'Make-up-athon' and Lernet and Sander's 'Natural Beauty', also share this fascination.  My only question now is, with tactile cosmetic excess being the way forward, where will it take us?

Lernert & Sander: Natural Beauty on Nowness.com.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Did you know that wing coloration is an important component of social signaling in butterflies?  In some Asian countries such as China and in Japan, dragonfly enthusiasts, much like birders elsewhere, pride themselves on recognizing many different types of this species of insect. In fact, numerous  festivals, and sanctuaries provide Japanese dragonfly enthusiasts with the opportunity to practice and perfect their skills.  It is striking that many visual signals such as symmetry,  used for communication by insects and animals, are judged to be attractive by humans.  With such universal appeal it is no surprise that Ryan McGinley's film contributes to the notion that biological evolution as well as artistic innovation has allowed us to develop a sensory bias towards the beautiful.

Ryan McGinley’s Beautiful Rebels on Nowness.com.