User Account

My practice consists of micro scale pencil drawings each framed individually in installations. The installations are based on domestic spaces such as an old lady's living room or a corridor in an old house to represent the drawings as documents of explorations in the past. The small-scale drawings represent the strength and fragility of humans at the same time.

The main subjects for my practice include the human existence, life and death, the structure of the curious sexualities of the human, and the use of sexual images in a non-sexual way. Recently I have become focused on homosexuality and bisexuality. In terms of theoretical influences, I am interested in obsession, penis-envy, hysteria, traumas, the Oedipus complex, domination/submission, and child psychoanalysis; particularly those introduced by Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein.

In my drawings, male genitals are represented as nutritious trees in a small village, in which small women harvest “penis trees” to eat in order to get pregnant. The women in the village cannot live without the penis trees, and vice versa. In the Penis Village, I represent the relationship between the male and the female, the strength of the female and the greatness of the male existence. The delicacy of the drawings of female genitals suggests the sweetness and the juiciness of the female character. In Breast Pudding drawings, I refer to the psychoanalytic theory stated by Melanie Klein in Envy and Gratitude states that; ‘keeping the power of enjoyment alive has its roots in infancy and depends on how far the baby had been able to enjoy the breast without excessively envying the mother for its possession.’ (Klein, 1975)

I attempt to create sexual fantasies in a non-sexual context, for example, without coitus references in my drawings. The Imageries that consist of sexual references tend to humiliate people causing them to laugh or feel disgusted, although sexual intercourse is a common human experience and vital for the human existence. Indeed, some people are delighted with my artwork. Each reactions from audiences towards artworks consist of sexual contexts are always fascinating to see.

I sometimes trace back the memories of my childhood and the past experience, to combine with my practice to explore child psychotherapy. In one of my sculptures called, “A Girl Who Hates Bath Time”, for instance, I refer to my childhood story that I was warned by my mother that if I did not have a bath for a few days some mushrooms would grow up from my head!

Creating an art work, I suppose, is, one of the best way to escape from the reality to the unreality (my own fairy tales) and to explore the deeper meaning of life, death and everyday experiences such as consuming, working and communicating with others like those small people harvest and eat genitals to live in my tiny fairyland.

Emi is a Contemporary Collective Artist