Totally NSFW debut: Justine Lai

[Parka81]

Wow. Just saw this entry on drawn.ca

It's an artist Justine Lai drawing fine art paintings of herself having sex with every American president.
You can check out the various paintings at justinelai.com (http://justinelai.com/)

Talk about being controversial and attention grabbing.

Warning. It's not suitable for work.

[Grief]

well i guess this answers the age old question of "whose dick do ya' gotta paint to get noticed?"

[Serpian]

Hahahaha, read her artist's statement, it's full of bs. I don't think this is controversial, but stupid. And not very well done from a technical point of view.

[MidgardSerpent]

Heheh, in one painting she's sucking off Lincoln. She's like, totally, humanising him.

[Opilione]

A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire
Ur doin it rong.

[Wooly ESS]

Well, you've got to say it's original. Much better than poop art, which we've discussed at some length.

I can't say I've ever seen an artistic depiction of a President in an act of oral sex.

Except for one, maybe.

[Frublz]

Ahahaha, it's funny, no more, no less. It's funny and there aren't many people who get the idea 'Let's make a bunch of pictures wherein I have sex with praesidents.

There was also that site, selffelatio.com or something about 'artistic' pictures of a some guy and in each the guy performed autofelatio.

[Kiera]

A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire
before more people laugh about this I have to say that it works for me, cool statement, it's absurd and obvious but more than "just funny"
I always find it annoying how many ca members laugh about other forms of art

[shamandalie]

Not saying i like it, but it's definitely interesting. Something that will make me stop and read the info when there's a whole bunch of art in a gallery.

[Frublz]

I always find it annoying how many ca members laugh about other forms of artYap, some times art can be just doing what no one has done before, especially if it's a way to criticize things. Like that one white canvas by some famous artist which was just a white canvas with a black text:

'This is not art, at least not yet, but the moment I sign it it will be, just watch me.

- :name of the artist:'

or some-thing like that, can't recall any more. Criticizing what you hate is easy, criticizing what you like is much harder and creative.

Any way, some positions where nice.

[Elwell]

I wish they were painted either better or worse. They're neither good nor bad enough to be interesting, just standard issue early 21st century art school untrained realism.

[r.mccabe]

I wish they were painted either better or worse. They're neither good nor bad enough to be interesting, just standard issue early 21st century art school untrained realism.

lol :)

[Straight Edge Ryan]

I understand what she's going for but I don't think people really see the president as some infallible immortal figure. Hell when Bush was president you couldn't walk 10 feet without hearing another "BUSH IZ DUMB LOLZ" statement

But still, I have been saying for years someone needs to paint themselves sucking off Lincoln. So for that she has my thanks

[Aphotic Phoenix]

I have to agree with Elwell that had they been executed differently, it may have been a much more interesting collection.

Hopefully taking the modeling shots have been fun at least. XD

[Hookswords]

Agreed. They dont seem distinct enough. Most of them seem like blurry John Q Publics of the times and little more. Not many of them are iconic enough to really make an impact. Kinda funny none the less.

[Frublz]

I like the choking position though.

[Craig D]

I really wish we could get that groan button back.

[Bill]

Lincoln didn't seem to be enjoying that BJ. I admit I'd have been curious to see the Obama... or the Clinton.

[NickGuy]

heh some of the presidents are kinkier than others.

I dig it...I just wish there were better backgrounds. Some of them look a bit rushed, or just painted over a picture.

[Qitsune]

I'm with Elwell, except that many of the faces look pasted on (when she switched the face of the president from that of the original model) that makes it slant more towards bad than average to me.

Obvisouly, with that kind of skill, we would never had talked about her if her subject matter was landscapes.

[J Wilson]

I haven't seen the work yet, because I am at work, but really does it need a useless artist's statement to make it "art"? Man, if you are going to do that kind of thing, have the stones to not attempt to make it something other than what it is - a cheap grab at attention. I say glory in it's cheap attention grabbing value and really OWN it. To me, an artist statement that tries to explain it as something deeper fools no one, and pulls it's only good punch.

[kev ferrara]

Uhhh... yeah.

She actually tried to paint realistically so that fails expressionism and primitivism. But then she failed to draw and paint well, so that fails realism. She actually painted these herself, which fails postmodernism. The patterning isn't strong, which fails Fauvism, Notan, Pop, Op, Outsider Art, and Persian Carpet School. The political statement fails at Propaganda, Performance Art, and Editorial. Yet the pieces aren't meaningless enough to qualify as Dada. The pictures don't really shock, so they fail Transgressive. They also fail Caricature, Portraiture, Porn, Concept Art, Conceptualism, Minimalism, Found Art, Low Brow, Clown Paintings and Cheesecake.

It seems the only thing they don't fail is fail itself.

Unless this is the beginning of a new movement: Failism. (In which case I say, Kudos!)

kev

P.S. Please don't mistake this post as judgmental.

[Serpian]

To people saying it's wrong to judge "other kinds" of art, this is my humble opinion: I respect works that have a strong technical skill, no matter how nonsensical the subject matter is. I also respect works where the subject matter is more important than the execution, if they manage to really move me and really are deep and meaningful. The best kind of art is the one that excels at both these extremes (and technical skill doesn not necessarily mean naturalistic painting). For me, these paintings do neither.

[LORD M]

She should have done one where she use a strap-on on George W Bush.

[VulgarDragon]

Maybe she's got a thing for older men?

[Taj]

Uhhh... yeah.

She actually tried to paint realistically so that fails expressionism and primitivism. But then she failed to draw and paint well, so that fails realism. She actually painted these herself, which fails postmodernism. The patterning isn't strong, which fails Fauvism, Notan, Pop, Op, Outsider Art, and Persian Carpet School. The political statement fails at Propaganda, Performance Art, and Editorial. Yet the pieces aren't meaningless enough to qualify as Dada. The pictures don't really shock, so they fail Transgressive. They also fail Caricature, Portraiture, Porn, Concept Art, Conceptualism, Minimalism, Found Art, Low Brow, Clown Paintings and Cheesecake.

It seems the only thing they don't fail is fail itself.

Unless this is the beginning of a new movement: Failism. (In which case I say, Kudos!)

kev

P.S. Please don't mistake this post as judgmental.


I think she was doing it for the "Lulz movement".

[FearSelf]

ummm....fanart?

[Bill]

Unless this is the beginning of a new movement: Failism...

"Sexism"?

[Chingwa]

Lincoln didn't seem to be enjoying that BJ
Well he's been dead for 150 years... he's concentrating, give the guy a break.

Still, the only ones I recognized were Lincoln and Grant. the paintings looked like they needed another pass or 2 for detail. Otherwise they just look like sexual fantasies with old white men, which would say more about the artist then about what the artists wants to say. (assuming you know, she actually is saying something... rather than trying to pretend this isn't art for shock value by writing a dubious explanation for it.)

lol@"art"

[Wooly ESS]

...Otherwise they just look like sexual fantasies with old white men...

....Soooo, anyone got her number?

[HunterKiller_]

Failism huh....
I like it.

[Straight Edge Ryan]

even more interesting: if she painted herself doing the dead presidents as they look NOW and not when they were alive

[Wooly ESS]

I thought that was what she was trying to do.

Oops!

[drd]

Her artist statement is awash in bathos

Unless she meant it to be so, but if it was meant as a joke of sorts I can't see her spending time on this over a span of 2 years

Its interesting, I'll give her that

[Grief]

we need more female presidents... young asian ones.

[Oden]

I didn't find this that bad.... I kinda enjoyed it, actually?

I didn't even find her artist statement that pretentious, and I thought she succeeded when she said she wanted to make something "playful and tender and maybe a little ambiguous."

I thought it was plenty playful, a bit silly, and kinda funny in an intentional way...yeah it wasn't amazing painting, but shit, we gotta start somewhere.

I dunno, I'm lame--can't seem to muster up any righteous indignation. sorry dudes. ;)

[Kaffinated]

Im waiting for the tag team piece with W and Chainy.

[Oden]

Or a threesome with the Obamas. Fisting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neCIg0BiXbE&feature=related), anyone?

[Arshes Nei]

I always find it annoying how many ca members laugh about other forms of art

So we're supposed to take her art seriously? :dur:

[EFrost]

I would have said yes if it wasn't for the fact that she's slacking. She's a good few behind...

[Robert.B]

Lulz....

[Wooly ESS]

I have to back up a bit. I have had as much fun in this discussion as anyone, mostly as a result of a salacious bent to my sense of humour. Still, having occasionally pushed the envelope myself, and not gotten much in way of a response (other than, "why don't you just paint nice pictures of dogs like you used to"), I do have some sympathy for the artist. She has put herself out there in a way that few of us would have courage to do.

[Kiera]

So we're supposed to take her art seriously? :dur:
people laugh over something that is from the whole concept not supposed to be take serious


(to the ones who complain about the awful technique - would you like the pictures better if she rendered every hair on George Washington's balls?)
I better stay out of the lounge 8D

[Grief]

(to the ones who complain about the awful technique - would you like the pictures better if she rendered every hair on George Washington's balls?)


he had false wooden pubes.

[Kiera]

wooden pubes
made out of sawdust (http://www.glosco-wood.com/MyImages/sawdust%201.jpg)?

[Kagemusha22]

I wonder if a British artist would do the same... though would that involve the Royal family, or the Prime-minister. (I just shudder at the thought of a Queen Victoria one)

If there's one thing I have to say about her work, it's that I've never seen sex being made to look so uninteresting. It feels very middle-aged, and that it's just going-through the motions...like a soured relationship.

[Elwell]

false...pubes.
Vocabulary word of the day: merkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin).

[Grief]

Vocabulary word of the day: merkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin).

i knew i read about this before...
of all the topics to be brought up more than once (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1022421&highlight=merkin#post1022421) >_<

[Straight Edge Ryan]

ugh I'd just hate to make a commitment to paint myself with ALL 50 PRESIDENTS. It's a massive project really and I wouldn't be able to work anything else without thinking "damn I still need to finish that president thing, I still got like 35 to go". I mean it'd be one of those things where I put some effort into like the first 5 then after that I'd be taking a bunch of shortcuts and doing shoddy work just to get the stupid project out of the way and move on with something I'm more interested in. God I'm having flashbacks to my high school electronic media art class

[Grief]

ugh I'd just hate to make a commitment to paint myself with ALL 50 PRESIDENTS.

i think you mean about more than about more than 50 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=117813).

[Sekino]

Vocabulary word of the day: merkin.

*Double take* Holy crap! I've just learned that word yesterday... What were the odds??

[Straight Edge Ryan]

i think you mean about more than about more than 50 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=117813).

right right right I was thinking of the number of states for some reason hahaha

[MidgardSerpent]

people laugh over something that is from the whole concept not supposed to be take serious
They're not taking something serious that, by your own (and the artist's) accord, was not supposed to be taken serious in the first place.

So.. where is the problem then?

[Arshes Nei]

people laugh over something that is from the whole concept not supposed to be take serious


(to the ones who complain about the awful technique - would you like the pictures better if she rendered every hair on George Washington's balls?)
I better stay out of the lounge 8D

What kind of example is that? Midgardserpent already addressed your first sentence, I'll get to the second.

Complaints about technique doesn't have to be about stupid details you posted. Southpark for example is crude, so is the animation. Complaining about technique in Southpark for that example is silly.

The reason there are complaints about technique in her work is that there is definite inconsistency in the treatment of her works for this series. Craftmanship isn't about "rendering every pube"

Some pieces look better rendered than others. There's also the fact instead of odd crops that don't work compositionally, she could have paid more attention to color choices than stuck with this white background and floating figures.

I guess you could say she had an idea of what to do but didn't have a real plan to go about it.

How she puts it out (and her thoughts behind it), and how the audience reacts are 2 different things. (Read Art & Fear). It's just that way it is and will always be.

[Elwell]

Actually, we've had less than about less than about fifty presidents.

[Straight Edge Ryan]

(to the ones who complain about the awful technique - would you like the pictures better if she rendered every hair on George Washington's balls?)


YES. YES I WOULD.