Attractive-Repulsive

From women’s portraits that have come to us from history, there linger the smallest details in our memory: the faintest of smiles, the curve of a breast, the tilt of a hat, the hint of a gesture, the swaying of hips - subtle and lingering, like the scent of perfume after the girl has passed. Such details embody ‘woman eternal’. There is a thrill in these memories, as intangible as it is intense: refinement, provocation, an angel’s caress.

From women’s protraits that come to us today from almost every aspect of popular culture, there lingers the message that women are there to be used sexually for men's pleasure and that all women - secretly or not - are longing for rough sex: ice-cold, passionless and cruel, a world where relationships in any meaningful sense don't exist, their place taken by exploitation. Such details embody the pornography generation.

There is a belief amongst young women that they will only find any sort of satisfaction, emotional or sexual, through allowing themselves to become the sex objects of men's fantasies in magazines and hip-hop videos. As go women so goes society? Have women lost their self-respect and dignity? Did women's empowerment lead to repression, or is it women's weakness that allows repression?

Oc-Eo Art presents Attractive-Repulsive, an exhibition of photographic images and sculpture to challenge our perceptions.

3 Bedfordbury Galley, Bedfordbury, London
7th-20th September 2010