Russian Taunt — Artist Statement
Russian Taunt is a portrait collection of Russian women that creates a brutalist, red soaring world where a lesbian desire is an inadvertent political gesture.
Russian Taunt is revolved around the bodies and identities of queer lesbian couples and single individuals from marginalized queer communities of Russia subtextually touching on the draconian anti-gay laws of my home country and introducing the ideas of anonymity, obfuscation and self-censorship into my practice. Being an afab queer who l who immigrated to the USA following the conservative changes in my homeland, I feel it is important to make art focused on the dichotomy of sexuality and nakedness through the lens of the queer gaze. Inspired by the authenticity of queer photographers such as Catherine Opie and Zanele Muholi, my hope is not just to document the lives of liminal communities that I see my own reflection in, but to create an intimate bond with them using the lens as a gluing agent.
Russian Taunt is an attempt to depict queerdom without pressuring the models to actually model, without using the camera voyeuristically. The camera is nothing but a room with a two-way mirror in it, obscuring the interior from those who would leer while allowing the model inside a chance to observe the world without self-consciousness.
