Freakitsch flock : an illustrative transmutation

Abstract

Contemporary visual culture has seemed to reach an image saturation point, due in part to

developments within cultural production online. Even if one does not apply full attention to it,

image is so ubiquitous that it percolates through one’s psyche in an almost a subconscious

process. However, this occurs so fleetingly that image strangely becomes at once disposable even

whilst it influences and informs our perceptions. In an attempt to make meaning out of this

inundation of visual information, our relationship with image is evolving: it has become an object

of resonance and commodity for self-expression.

Freakitsch Flock: an Illustrative Transmutation aims to examine and reinterpret Tumblr visual

subculture as I experience it, with specific interest in a niche where a subversive aesthetic of

femininity has emerged, at once girlishly vulnerable and grotesque. It looks into the nature of

imagery and take cues from how image may construct meaning through symbolism. Rather than

communicating a specific message or revelation, the project is an expressive art experiment in

“crowdsourcing” inspiration and subject matter guided by themes of gender and identity, and an

attempt to process images more deeply and reconstructively through drawing.