Yuanyuan Yang – Twinkle (2009)
The use of color in this is incredible. The way the purple stockings complement her skin tone and the way the cyan areas differentiate the more miasmatic elements of the image from the more tangible representation of the figures body. How the color of the antenna baubles on the left tie together with the abstract bubble on the right–all while still complementing the body.
I can’t look at this without seeing the abstract parts of the painting as resembling that snail character from SpongeBob SquarePants–with a paisley pattern shell.
I’m not entirely sure that’s so far off base. The fact that the person in the image is looking at their genitalia seems to emphasize this meaning. The same grade school mentality that renders phallic arousal as a boner or a stiffy, denigrates vulvic arousal as leaving a snail trail.
The way that we’re so open and curious about our own bodies–what we can do to them and what they can do for us. Until we’re taught to feel shame for taking pleasure in what our bodies are built to do.
So I feel coded into this image is a sort of entire history of relating to one’s genitalia. There’s curiosity–the person is studying their genitalia, shame (the contextualization of arousal with an excess of effluvia that manifests as something either cartoonish and absurd–a snail; or, something that is abstract and decorative, if not beautiful in a strange sort of way.
And looking at Yang’s other work, I’m reasonably convinced that my reading isn’t that far off base. Like I have so many feels about this watercolor that I really can’t even…
Acetylene Eyes 