RF51 DICK PICS 2025-CURRENT
These images are a commentary on our collective use of online media to imagine and construct our own identities, both for ourselves and for others. Using images colloquially known as “dick pics” I am investigating the male presentation as it exists in the warped, manipulated perspective of the internet at large. The series recalls the work of artists like Cindy Sherman and Yasumasa Morimura as it interrogates how we construct our own “self portraits”.
To realize this project I commissioned a costume to resemble Henry Moore’s “Reclining Figure 1951”. “Dick pics” are self portraits men share or post online to show off, advertise, boast, or titillate. These “dick pics" are images found on the internet with “Reclining Figure 1951” superimposed into the scene, supplanting the central figure. Wearing the “Reclining Figure 1951” costume and recreating the “dick pics” reinforces the very construction of masculinity.
By replacing the central figure I am recontextualizing the images within an art historical context. I am conceptually interested and aesthetically drawn to these highly manipulated photos precisely because they recall the formal aesthetics of the male nude and draw attention to the performance of masculinity.
