‘Cock Block’
‘CoCk Block’
Oil on Clayboard | Yellow base layer: YesColours Wall Paint
Work by Laura Pomarius
The Story
Not as a commission. He didn't want to own it. He just wanted it to exist in the world, on a wall, seen by strangers at an exhibition. He had a reference image ready. He'd thought about the composition. He mentioned Mapplethorpe. He described his vision as brutalist in its simplicity.
I thought about it. Then said no. And made this instead.
I put his words — verbatim — onto a canvas in vinyl lettering, then painted the image he'd asked for directly over the top in oil. When it was done, I peeled the letters away.
The painting now covers what it was made from.
The image has almost disappeared.
His words burn back through.
What interested me more than making the painting was the request itself.
Would a woman ever ask for this? What would her reasoning be?
Would he have asked a man?
A man I work with — a life model — asked me to paint his penis.
The subject has seen this piece. When asked if he felt slighted by it, he replied:
"Not at all! It's all part of my journey of exploring & 'being' art… boundaries are there to be pushed & love finding those limits…"
He called it our collaboration.
The PROCESS
Step 1
I first painted the whole clayboard with YesColours Electric Yellow.
Then I attached the ‘model’s’ quote in vinyl letters.
[The red ‘N’ has no special meaning. I had run out of white vinyl.
Step 2
Using oil colour, I painted the reference image he had sent me on top of the board with the vinyl stickers attached, hiding the whole quote.
I attempted to get the picture as close as possible to what he had been asking for in this step.
Step 3
I lifted off each individual letter, thereby ‘destroying’ part of my work, and revealing the neon quote.
In the final version, the penis is now still recognisable, but hidden behind his own words.
