Larry Achiampong's "And I saw a new heaven" @ Copperfield London

Courtesy of the Artist and Copperfield, London. Photo credits: Reece Straw. Larry Achiampong's work, gallery view.

Courtesy of the Artist and Copperfield, London. Photo credits: Reece Straw.

Referencing the unlikely trinity of HBO, video games and Christianity, the exhibition title, which is drawn from dialogue within the video game-turned-series The Last of Us and ultimately from the Bible, encapsulates the references for Larry Achiampong’s second solo show at Copperfield. From computer games to church, the cast of faces represented there has almost always been white. The already problematic status quo that church is high culture and gaming is low or pop culture breaks down here when one references the other, but the exhibition brings real game play for visitors into direct dialogue with Achiampong’s collaged paintings.

“Video games have had huge influence on my art work and the reality of their sophistication and cultural referencing is ignored by the rest of the creative sphere. It’s time for video games to take their place as context in the gallery while I work on my ultimate goal; a playable artwork. At its core, gaming is storytelling, world building, fantasy, exploration and human culture in one.”

What is missing still, trailing behind even film and TV, is minority representation in games. What scant references there have been to people of color or the queer community, for example, have almost always been negative or derogatory with just one or two recent exceptions, like Bayonetta. Why though when nearly half of game players in the US alone are people of color? While the mechanics differ, the cause and effect of this uncomfortable fact can ultimately be connected to a similar peculiarity in religion.

Larry Achiampong’s “And I saw a new heaven” is on view through June 17th @ Copperfield Gallery 6 Copperfield Street, London

"Facing South: Mythical Mindscapes" @ Rele LA

oil paintings on the wall of Rele Gallery for Facing South: Mythical Mindscapes

COPYRIGHT © 2023 RELE GALLERY

Rele Gallery Los Angeles presents Facing South: Mythical Mindscapes, the first in a series of group exhibitions featuring works by artists from Southern Africa. Exploring ideas of hybridity, spirituality and the metaphysical as well as critiquing entrenched forms of Western ideology, the exhibition — running from May 6 to June 3 — presents works from the Tendai Mupita, Quamani Bangani and Kay Gasei. 

8215 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles CA 90046

Opening The New Cassina Store With Creative Director Patricia Urquiola In Los Angeles

Luca Fuso and Patricia Urquiola, CEO and Art Director of Cassina respectively, together with Stephanie De Oliveira and Philippe Rousselin, Founders of Diva, presented the opening of Cassina’s incredible new store in Los Angeles. Two floors full of Cassina’s most iconic, desirable objects and new design pieces and collaborations with the likes of the late Virgil Abloh. A champion of modernism over the past almost 100 years, Cassina continue to cement its status as a leader in the field. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Tom Wesselmann's "Intimate Spaces" Opens @ Gagosian in Los Angeles

A large painting of lips smoking a cigarette. Smoker #8, 1973 © The Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by ARS/VAGA, New York, Photo: Jeffrey Sturges, Courtesy the Estate and Gagosian

Smoker #8, 1973 © The Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by ARS/VAGA, New York, Photo: Jeffrey Sturges, Courtesy the Estate and Gagosian

A defining artist of American Pop Art, Tom Wesselmann produced innovative mixed-media paintings that brought the energy of commercial culture to still lifes, interiors, landscapes, and nudes. The exhibition—Intimate Spaces—concentrates on the artist’s primary subject, the female nude, with key works from Great American Nudes (1961–73) and subsequent series. With a nod to both the great American novel and the American dream, Great American Nudes also refers to Wesselmann’s affinity for the scale of Abstract Expressionist paintings, billboards, and movie screens. Inspired by Henri Matisse’s odalisques, Wesselmann employed a saturated palette, clearly defined contours, and interlocking positive and negative shapes. The paintings are set in domestic interiors and often incorporate collage and assemblage elements, appearing highly contemporary in their provocative discontinuities of style.

Wesselmann’s nudes became icons of the 1960s sexual revolution. Wishing to avoid portraiture, the artist frequently deemphasized facial features, foregrounding both abstraction and overt eroticism. “The figures dealt primarily with their presence,” he wrote (as his pseudonym, Slim Stealingworth). “Personality would interfere with the bluntness of the fact of the nude. When body features were included, they were those important to erotic simplification, like lips and nipples. There was no modeling, no hint at dimension.”

Intimate Spaces is on view through June 16 @ Gagosian 456 North Camden Drive
Beverly Hills

Tim Brawner Presents "Glad Tidings" @ Management in New York

 
A close-up portrait of a blue, blurry face, panicked behind a steering wheel. Tim Brawner, The Escape III, 2023 © Management, New York City

Tim Brawner, The Escape III, 2023 © Management, New York City

Tim Brawner’s Glad Tidings —featured at Management— is equally motivated by a documentarian impulse and the submission to the fantastic and weird, where saturated psychedelia defamiliarizes the compositional playing field.

Brawner’s extreme interest in portraiture yields exaggerated, almost humorous depictions of faces and objects alike, through which affect is pushed to the point of alienation.

When discussing the content of his paintings, Brawner refers to concepts of “the weird” and “the eerie,” specifically in the way Mark Fisher invokes Lacanian jouissance in his discussion of H.P. Lovecraft’s brand of weirdness, where the sublimation of negativity is accomplished through the transformation of “an ordinary object [which causes] displeasure into a Thing which is both terrible and alluring, which can no longer be libidinally classified as either positive or negative.” This serves as a basis for Brawner’s subjects as he pursues content with ongoing consideration for the failure of empathy. 

These images pulsate, stirring a bizarre drama where the audience confronts painted subjects that almost become real. There are passages where Brawner selectively pushes maximalist details, overexplaining the formal aspects so that they become hypnotic.

Text by Reilly Davidson

Glad Tidings is on view through June 18 at Management 39 E Broadway, 404

 

Sara Suppan's "Sweet Potato" Exhibition with Micki Meng

 
An oil painting of a foot wearing a brown loafer show and yellow floral socks, arched and raised from the ground. Pop’s Socks, 2023 © Sara Suppan and Micki Meng, San Francisco

Pop’s Socks, 2023 © Sara Suppan and Micki Meng, San Francisco

In the artist’s debut solo presentation with Micki Meng, Sara Suppan’s Sweet Potato (April 27 - June 9, 2023) collection of new paintings brings sincere attention to commonplace absurdities. Generating a good-humored tension between formal and casual modes of picture-making, scenes that seem spontaneously captured by a phone camera are painted with diligent precision. The paintings’ lush and tenacious realism, executed in the slower medium of oil on panel, gives a strange gravity to passing moments of levity.

Selected subjects display themselves like proof that novelty can be found laced throughout slices of daily life. Finding joy in boredom and delight in simple pleasures, the works encourage us to notice the small miracles that show up if we’re looking for them, defusing the humdrum austerity of chore and routine.

 

Pacific Standard Time "Art & Science Collide" Exhibition Program Revealed

A person in a futuristic suit of coils and metals is in profile in front of a wall of TVs with blue, empty screens.

Katherine E. Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, today joined more than 50 partner organizations to reveal the mind-expanding exhibitions they will present in the next Pacific Standard Time, Art & Science Collide, opening in September 2024. Grants from Getty for the latest edition now total $17 million, with more organizations to be added as the collaboration grows. Getty also announced plans to make the landmark regional collaboration a regularly scheduled series on a five-year cycle under a new name, PST Art. See all programming here.

CLAMP's "My Velvet Shadow" Presents 3 Gen X Painters

 
An expressionist oil painting of a disembodied torso wearing green velvet shorts. © John Brooks; “In a Room Where You Do What You Don’t Confess,” 2023; Oil on canvas; 48 x 36 inches; Courtesy of the artist and CLAMP, New York.

© John Brooks; “In a Room Where You Do What You Don’t Confess,” 2023; Oil on canvas; 48 x 36 inches; Courtesy of the artist and CLAMP, New York.

On May 11, CLAMP will be releasing “My Velvet Shadow” which presents three Gen X painters—John Brooks, Anthony Goicolea, and Kris Knight—whose work exemplifies queer time and queer style. These artists came of age with the residual fear that sex, intimacy, and love could likely lead to death.

The work in “My Velvet Shadow” seeks to bridge the gap between two queer generations that were disconnected by the invisibility the AIDS epidemic bestowed upon an entire generation. Presented alone in the devastating aftershock of a gay plague, the subjects of these works exist/survive in unguarded vulnerable states surrounded by a host of disparate appropriations that act as a twisting road map for the preservation of queer culture. Instead of radical sexualization or earnest intimacy, the work adopts revelatory beauty to salve the scabs and scars of inherited trauma.

 
 
 

Luis Alberto Rodriguez's New Book "O"

 
Black and white photograph of a shirtless man with one white eye and hands clasped over his chest.
 

In O, Dominican-American artist Rodriguez explores the free-fall of life, the construction of identity, and their connections with spiritual destiny. Using a cast of different bodies, ages, backgrounds and identities, Rodriguez challenges his subjects to let go: bodies contort and collapse while returning to poise, lifting to grace, and reaching into purity. How much control do we have over the direction we are headed? How soft is the landing?

The book's title – the letter O – speaks to the transcendence Rodriguez seeks in his evocative portraits: between a noise, a gasp, an exhale, a cycle, all sounds, an open symbol, a zero, a reset. These deep, soulful black-and-white darkroom photos attempt to capture a feeling in our contemporary moment: a loss of control and a search for dignity and pride.

O will be released by Loose Joints in early May with launches in New York, Berlin and Paris.

O. by Luis Alberto Rodriguez is published by Loose Joints.

 
 

all images © Luis Alberto Rodriguez 2023 courtesy Loose Joints

CELINE Women Summer 23 La Collection de Saint-Tropez Collection Customized Vintage Mini Moke

For the Women Summer 23 La Collection de Saint-Tropez, CELINE presents a customized a vintage Mini Moke vehicle. the small summer beach convertible car originally designed for military purposes, which first appeared in 1964 and quickly became a symbol of freedom and pleasure in many seaside towns, especially in Saint-Tropez where the car was famously driven by French actress and myth Brigitte Bardot. For this special project, the car has been customized with a Triomphe wooden steering wheel, a Triomphe canvas hood, and a dashboard featuring tan leather elements, wicker seats, and spare wheel protection. a golden Triomphe signature appears on the wheels and gear shift. photographs by Hedi Slimane.

Kate Parfet Debuts Unique Coffee Table Poetry Art & Photo Book

Milking a Duck is a casebound poetry, art & photography coffee table book by Kate Parfet, printed by die Keure. Available today, via publisher pois é and in select bookstores worldwide including Arcana Books on the Arts, Casa Bosques, Claire de Rouen, Mast Books, Librarie Yvon Lambert, McNally Jackson and Skylight Books. This book is a representation of the female experience, and more specifically motherhood, recognizing all mother stories as both universal and singularly unique. Parfet’s deep exploration of (and at times outrage for) the ways in which politics, medicine, and society shape the motherhood experience inspired her to create this book. Click here to order.

Discover AMAZONICOIL: The New Ethnobotanical CBD Serum by Makeup Artist and Director Marco Castro

MARCO CASTRO® is the new beauty and skincare line created by renowned makeup artist and beauty expert Marco Castro. As a Peruvian immigrant, Castro draws inspiration from his love for Latinx culture, which he explores in both his makeup work and films. With work that has been recognized at over thirty film festivals, he has collaborated with respected artists such as Pedro Almodóvar and Nan Goldin, and his client portfolio features prominent names in the fashion space such as Luar, Calvin Klein, and Cartier.

In the development of his brand, Castro is committed to providing sustainable and mind-reawakening skin solutions using ethnobotanical ingredients sourced from the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, including sacha inchi, wild buriti, and hemp-derived, full-spectrum CBD extract. With its mission to decolonize beauty standards and provide a platform for future generations to embrace their unique identities, the brand celebrates and promotes Latinx culture by spotlighting the ancestral Latinx language of beauty and placing it on a global stage. In an effort to create a better future for better humans, the brand has also become Leaping Bunny certified, testing all products on humans rather than animals.

For its initial offering, MARCO CASTRO® has launched AMAZONICOIL®, a beauty serum that can be used both topically for lightweight moisture that soothes the skin and reduces signs of aging, age spots, and acne scars, and orally to help with anxiety, stress, and pain relief while boosting the immune system with revitalized antioxidants and macronutrients. It is the result of years of research into Peruvian ethnobotany and the myriad health properties of its ingredients.

Bottega Veneta & Gaetano Pesce Present 'Vieni a Vedere' @ Salone del Mobile in Milan

The Humanist architect-designer-artist Gaetano Pesce is a towering figure in each of his fields; a true multidisciplinarian with an iconoclastic agenda who, despite a career spanning seven decades, still refuses to be cowed or quantified. In numerous public and private works realized globally, in the fields of architecture, town planning, interior design, industrial design and exhibition design, the constant experimentation of an artist who refuses repetition infuses all.

Following the commission given to Pesce to create a temporary site-specific artwork as show space for the Summer ’23 Bottega Veneta fashion show, the dialogue continues and a further stage is explored. Once again given creative carte blanche, and this time situated in the brand’s Montenapoleone store, Pesce creates a unique installation called ‘Vieni a Vedere’ (Come and See). Spanning the store, the immersive installation utilizes resin and fabric to create a unique experience that the visitor travels through. It frames an edition of handbags realised by Bottega Veneta for the artist according to his designs.

Embracing figuration and stories of the personal rather than the purely functional, Pesce’s bags utilize the idiosyncratic both in terms of handcraft and creativity. Based on mountains and prairies, the handbags echo his early life in Italy growing up near the mountains in Este, and the prairies of America, a reflection of where he lives today.

“This is my first design of a bag and it is figurative – two mountains with a sunrise or a sunset behind. I wanted a bag with an optimistic view. There is a capacity to realize anything at Bottega Veneta and this bag opens up a way to express future design. The design of the future has to be figurative and it has to communicate – such an object has to tell a story.” Gaetano Pesce

The installation is on view through April 22, where the artist’s edition of handcrafted handbags can also be purchased. Look out for an interview of Pesce in our forthcoming SS23 Utopia issue, also available for preorder April 22.

 
Stone Building with windows covered with green watercolor style art and "BOTTEGA VENATA" across the front of the building.
 

Hotel Fancì by Sharon Angelia, Camille Ange Pailler, and Alina Larissa

A model on top of a table with a glass and wood panel behind her. The Model is wearing strappy heels with a flower as the heel, and a black ruffle skirt with a pink top that has a ruffle across her chest.
 

creative direction by Alina Larissa
fashion styling & art direction by Camille Ange Pailler
photography by Sharon Angelia
casting by Suhadi Budiman at Bumi Faces
models Hani at Persona Bali & Alya at Bali Starz
makeup by Annika 
hair by Angelina Sherba 
stylist assistance by Gloria Stephanie
photo assistance by Safri Ndruru 

all clothing by Fancì club
shoes by Valeria De Lacerta
jewelry by Baggira

 

Based in Vietnam, twenty-four-year-old Duy Tran sculpts bodies with frilled dresses that are contrasted by sexy, see-through fabrics. Earlier this winter, the precocious designer invited us to explore his new Fancì collection in an extravagantly expansive hotel called The Rich Prada in Uluwatu, Bali.

Currently under renovation, the seemingly abandoned resort is well-frequented with each room boasting its own unique, thematic design. The stark contrast between luxurious materials and dirty construction sites offered a space for unbridled imagination. It was like being in an abandoned, life-sized Barbie house, teeming with dust and dirt years after its child had outgrown it.

 
A model sitting on her knees on a table witrh a white flower ruffle scarf anf flowery netted tights and a black top. A small flower vase sits next to her.
A Model lounges half-up on a intricate hotel carpet beneath her. She wears a pink flowering tank top with ruffles and black underwear.
 
 
A model lounges on a glass and wood patterned panel/room seperator with red pants, a blue flower placed on her hip and a long flowing black dress with ruffles on top.
 
A model lays on blue/green intricate hotel carpet with a red ruffle top and blue skirt with a flower on the bottom hem.
A model propped up against a wood table with a glass and wood pannel background, She places her hands on chairs next to her, and a part of her pink ruffle top runs along her left hand. She wears a black ruffle skirt with fishnets and strappy heels.
 
A flower arch is placed behind the model, who is wearing low-rise teal pants with a flower on the hip. This is paired with a wrapped flower ruffled top. The background appears to be placed like a wedding day, with a white chair and paintings.
A model wears a white sheer dress with ruffles on the edges of the bottom, and pink sheer tights as she leans against a beige wall in a empty room.
 
who is wearing low-rise teal pants with a flower on the hip. This is paired with a wrapped flower ruffled top. The background appears to be a flower arch.
Two models appear in the frame, with one walking out of a room with a pink dress with frills on the bottom and strappy heels, and the other against a spiral patterned wall with a hot pink dress with flower details and purple tights.
 
A model posing on purple ground with her hand stretching out to grab her ankle. She is wearing a pair of strappy heels and black shorts wit a corseted top which dons a pink bow in the middle.
 
A model stands in front of a biege wall with purple floor wearing a light pink dress with frills hanging below and a flower at the hip. She also wears purple tights and black and brown heels.
Mutiple Models appear lounging on the floor, all focused on a model in the middle. One takes a pictures of the model, who wears a red ruffled top and a blue skirt with frills alying around her connected to the skirt.
 
A model lays on the floor grasping her legs, showing her strappy heels with a flower design as the heel and a pink dress with a flower on her shoulder.

Brian Belott and Ross Simonini: A Cross Country Simultaneous Performance

Last year, Brian Belott and Ross Simonini performed across the country simultaneously, as part of their ongoing collaboration in painting, text, and music. Simonini performed in Los Angeles, on the ruins of Cobb Estate, the former property of the Marx Brothers, which is now a wilderness area believed to haunted. Belott performed at anonymous gallery, at the closing of Simonini's exhibition in New York, where Simonini's performance was live streamed. The release of this video is in celebration of Sound Scribbles, a collection of Belott's vocal improvisations, compiled by Simonini. The album releases on RVNG Intl. on April 14th and is presented in two limited versions, with essays from Belott and Simonini.

Brutalism and the Body: A Melitta Baumeister SS23 Editorial by Sam Crawford & Cathleen Peters

 
A model in drapey purple sequin fabric with high pointed shoulders around her face.

Melitta Baumeister sequin with wood construction dress

 

photography by Sam Crawford
styling by Cathleen Peters
hair by Rei Kawauchi
makeup by Mariko Arai
modeled by Theresa Hayes @ Muse c/o Derek
photography assistance by Ari Sodak & Dylan Garcia

A model on a blue/white ombre-like background wearing a white print lace dress and pointed leather shoes with white above ankle socks.

Melitta Baumeister stretch lace dress and patent leather pointy loafers, Falke cotton socks

close up shot on a white rippling pleated dress on a dark background.

Melitta Baumeister ripple pleating dress and pants

 
black and white image of a blurry model wearing a ripple pleaded bag on top her head and a matching top. (Melitta Baumeister)

Melitta Baumeister ripple pleating bag and top

 
a blue ombre background with a model covered by shadow wearing a green metallic dress( Melitta Baumeister) that puffs out around her waist.

Melitta Baumeister metallic lame dress, AKA lobe earring and ear cuffs

a close-up shot of model with sequin high pointed shoulders dress covering parts of her face.

Melitta Baumeister sequin with wood construction dress

 
A blurry model in motion jumping up in pointed faux leather shoes and a vinyl dress with a bow in the front (Melitta Baumeister)

Melitta Baumeister bonded vinyl dress and patent leather pointy loafers

 
A blue ombre background with pink tull on floor underneath standing model. The model wears a rippling pleaded top and pants (Melitta Baumeister), with patent leather platform shoes.

Melitta Baumeister ripple pleating top and pants, stretch mesh top, and patent leather platform shoes

A model with her hair appearlingly in motion as she poses in a white stretchy mesh dress and pointed loafers. She wears a silver bracelet on her right arm (AKA) and nylon tights (Calzedonia).

Melitta Baumeister stretch mesh dress and patent leather pointy loafers, Calzedonia nylon tights, AKA silver bracelet

Read Our Interview Of Charlotte Edey on the Occasion of Her Solo Exhibition @ Ginny on Frederick in London →

Charlotte Edey is a London-based visual artist who adopts a multidisciplinary practice as a form of personal and political expression. Drawing on a multitude of themes, her work addresses notions of femininity, gender, body politic, and mythology. Edey’s tapestry, embroidery and sculptural pieces are extensions of her drawing practice, and her distinct artistic language focuses heavily on symbolism and the investigation of space. Recognized for their surreal dreamscapes and pastel palette, she employs a recurring water motif that takes inspiration from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” which serves as an investigation of ‘hydrofemininity,’ and the belief that our bodies are fundamentally part of the natural world.  

Edey’s newest body of work, Framework, is currently on view at Ginny on Frederick. In this exhibition, a dialogue between each piece has been created by the artist as she examines various ways to blur the boundary between the real and the represented through the motif of the window and frame. Using these as a point of departure, she explores the notion of transparency to identify and differentiate between interior and exterior, public and private. Her intricately detailed—hand sewn and beaded—tapestry works and larger mirrored pieces are symbolic gateways that gently interrogate interior space, identity, and observation. We spoke on the occasion of Framework’s opening to discuss her development in recent years, as well as her interest in the symbolic interplay between windows, frames, and eyes. Read more.

First reprisal (sometimes I’m afraid if I disregard someone else’s story) by Polina Boyko, Bianca Nicolucci & Marzia Comuzio

close up shot of body with belts across the chest and down the stomach. With a tattoo of big anime-like eyes on lower stomach. Belts by Arlene and Tattoo by Mario Mellis.

belts by Arlette
tattoo by Mario Mellis

photography by Polina Boyko
styling by Bianca Nicolucci & Marzia Comuzio
makeup by Yoko Minami
hair by Yoko Okuno
talents Miriam @ PRM Agency & Jasmine
lighting by Alexander Retnik
photography assistance by Oriana
makeup assistance by Lala

tank top by Celine Breton 
skirt by Lucila Safdie 
tights stylist own

model on white background wearing a draping colorful hat ( Paula Mihovilovic Einfalt) and a brown jumpsuit ( De Pino) with matching colofrul socks by ( Tytm8) and tan belt and pink ballerina slippers.

hat by Paula Mihovilovic Einfalt 
jumpsuit by De Pino 
belt & ballerinas stylist own
socks by Tytm8

Two models with curly hair in a close-up shot wearing dangling earrings and both a brown (100Morceaux) and silver coat ( Paula Mihovilovic Einfalt)

brown cape by 100Morceaux 
silver cape by Paula Mihovilovic Einfalt 
earring stylist own

model bending backwards in frae, with stylized mirror in background and silver balloons sticking out around model. Model is wearing a red hooded sweater (Sara Mikorey) and spiral earrings.

earring by Roussey 
hoodie by Sara Mikorey

A pair of hands held, while one model wears a silver cape by Paula Mihovilovic Einfalt and a green and black dress ( Cormio), and the other model ( who is out of shot) wears a brown cape by 100Morceaux

brown cape by 100Morceaux 
silver cape by Paula Mihovilovic Einfalt 
green & black dress by Cormio 

a models bare back with tattoo on lower back ( Mario Mellis) with a belt around her neck (Arlette) and argyle tights (Hglf)

earring by Tétier 
belt by Arlette
tattoo by Mario Mellis 
tights by Hglf

model crounching down in front of camera wearing fringe magenta dress (Meiloumi) and brown cape over her head ( 100Morceaux)

cape by 100Morceaux 
dress by Meiloumi 
tights stylist own

Two models are sitting closely to each other in the foreground. One is wearing a brown and pink dress with fringes on the bottom, with a brown cape around her neck and the other appears to be wearing a strapless green dress and silver cape.

brown cape by 100Morceaux 
silver cape by Paula Mihovilovic Einfalt 
green & black dress by Cormio 
brown dress by Meiloumi

close-up shot of many legs and arms, wearing polka dotted tights(Lewis Dussurget) and knitted tops. A bright light comes in between the body parts. One model wears a slounching pink top (Provincia Studio) and another wears a grey hoodie (100Morceaux)

grey hoodie by 100Morceaux
purple body by Paula Mihovilovic Einfalt 
pink top by Provincia Studio
black & white tights by Lewis Dussurget 
bracelet by Zana Bayne

Leave Your Thoughts On Boobs After The Tone: Read Our Interview of Carly Randall On Her New Short Film "TITS" →

Carly Randall is a visual artist, filmmaker and creative producer. Her work explores issues and themes that specifically impact women in modern society. These include knife crime, online bullying  and filter culture, as seen in her multi-award-winning dance film, FILTERFACE: Double Tap to Like, which examines how social media filter culture affects the mental health of young women. 

In 2022, Carly was awarded a Develop Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England to create a 2-minute-long, educational art film that exposes the language men use to talk about women’s breasts, highlighting the ubiquitously misogynistic and objectifying attitudes. Carly set up a hotline for teenage boys and young men to share their honest opinions on women’s breasts via voicemail. She created posters to promote the hotline, strategically placing them in prime locations around London’s East End Borough of Hackney (sometimes up to 200 a go), and shared with universities, colleges and friends who posted them in city centres nationally to ensure a diverse response that fairly depicts the breadth of the UK. To accompany the voicemails, Carly worked with a casing agent to bring together a selection of women from around the UK to shoot and film their breasts—those which our patriarchal society have deemed “undesirable": too flat, too big, odd nipples…

Carly has created a unique social experiment that creatively dramatizes the disparity between the ‘fantasy’ and the ‘reality’ of women’s breasts as a result of unrealistic representations created by the porn industry, perpetuated across social media and reaffirmed by patriarchal conditioning. I spoke with Carly about her motivations behind the art piece, how Playboy inspired her backdrop for the art film, and her main takeaways from listening to the voicemails. Click here to read more and watch the film.