Current Exhibition

Porn Chic

By Nicola Bockelmann
5 July – 4 August 2006

By blowing up and re-working images from advertisements that use classic ‘porn chic’ tactics as a means to sell, Nicola Bockelmann deems herself the witness to a phenomenon whose popularity, extension and impact is ever-present in Western and Westernised society.

By deliberately painting in a flawed photorealistic way, Bockelmann maintains a sense of distance; the unfamiliar size of the finished work and her surrealistic touches, such as an elongated limb or lopsided eye, create dissonance and urge us to question this everyday glossy explicitness.

Further Information

In 2005 Nicola Bockelmann received a grant from Arts Council England to produce a series of paintings entitled Porn Chic. ‘Porn chic', Bockelmann explains, “refers to the pornographic without being pornographic itself. It can be found almost anywhere in the public sphere: in film, photography, music, advertisements, literature, art and fashion… it has truly become a lifestyle-phenomenon.” And it is this ever-present reflection and trend of Western and Westernised society whose popularity, extension and impact the artist deems herself the witness of.

Nicola Bockelmann received Arts Council funding for this work.