Pink Blots
Untitled Collage (Wild Wild Pink West), 2017, collage on paper, 11"x15"
Lauren Munns is a Brooklyn-based artist working with ideas of femininity and womanhood throughout her art practice. Her "Pink Blots" series is a commentary on the psychological repercussions of feminine stereotypes portrayed in popular media, and her other work examines symbols of womanhood. Read more about these ideas from the artist herself and discover her work below!
I am fascinated with growth, evolution, and one’s perception of others – discovering and exploring the traditions and habits that stem from these concepts. The rituals between mothers and daughters through generations and the challenges of interaction with outer human spheres are highlighted in my pieces through traditionally “feminine” colors and textures, often transformed to seem as though they are something else. I manipulate imagery of the female form and its most notable parts like lips, curves, and hair. Detached from the female form, these pieces create new conversations around these questions:
“Where did we derive from?”
“What are we?”
“Where are we headed?”
Within art, the female identity appears in many different forms from Jenny Saville’s paintings, to photographs of Marilyn Monroe, and Diane Arbus’s portraits. This is how I knew I wanted to work with imagery that could easily be recognized and suggest ideas of femininity and sexuality – fishnet stockings, lips, female bodies. Experimenting with different shapes and sizes, the inkblot collages like Rosy are applied to 11”x15” paper with Flesh Blots around 22”x30”. The "Pink Blots" are about color and texture, from the red curly hair to flowers. I believe that these pieces can easily grow exponentially in size, but knowing when to stop is key. It takes a lot of walking away, returning, adding a piece, walking away, returning, and rearranging.
For more from Lauren Munns: