Roseville College
Consumption Conspicuous
Painting
Gouache on paper
My intent in appropriating Cabanel’s The Birth of Venus and Manet’s Olympia was to expose the intersection between parasocial relationships and consumerism, challenging audiences to evaluate how they connect with online content creators. My body of work includes references to ubiquitous sponsored products and technological productivity to explore the concept of parasocial relationships, where viewers believe that they have intimate relationships with creators and fail to recognise the transactional nature of their interactions. Acknowledging our tendency to defy creator autonomy, I represent the subject’s two states of perception, thereby defying the notion of a content creator as a singular persona.
My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following artists: Édouard Manet, Olympia; Alexandre Cabanel, The Birth of Venus; Yamamoto Tarō, Cans decorated with scenes of chapters 'Young Murasaki' and 'Beneath the autumn leaves' from 'The Tale of Genji' on the blue carpet; Edvard Munch, The Scream; Nelson Aquini, After the death of Marat Painting; Katsushika Hokusai.