Carrion Wake Up

The Carrion flower is a plant that emits the smell of rotting flesh to attract its pollinator, the fly. I wanted to play around with this idea of "waking up to smell the flowers" where the flower in this case is not as it seems....This piece comments on the fluidity of sexuality and the fine line between pleasure and pain, eroticism and death. It is inspired by surrealistic notions of subconscious associations, dreams and automatism. This painting was created using the Surrealist method of automatism, that is, a method of art-making in which the artist inhibits conscious control over the making process (for example not having a planned painting in mind but merely beginning to paint). This allows the unconscious mind to have great influence over the outcome.