Behind The Door: Strength Series

“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in a maze of inward contemplation” Anais Nin The Awakening (14) There are different kinds of strengths: the strength to lead, and the strength to follow: the strength to control, and the strength to yield. There are two kinds of power: the power to strip another's soul bare, and the power to stand naked. My work is an evolving, extended self-portrait intended to address and explore my own submissive sexuality. I construct images using symbols from experiences that are in one way or another associated with the awakening of my sexual awareness, or rather, the dissolution of my sexual denial. It is an inquiry into the erotic, the feminine, and the human. Inspiration comes from memory, dreams, and the subconscious. What remains are images that communicate mystery, melancholia, and nostalgia and that deliberately reference the Pictorialism of the Victorian era—an era associated with strict, if often hypocritical, sexual mores