Tracy Nakayama at Modern Culture
Flash Art, May-June 2002
Inspired from 1970’s porn magazines like Foxy Lady and Viva, Tracy Nakayama’s “Natural Born Lovers” explores the source of desire by presenting us with objects of delectation which possess a vitality of their own. The characters in Nakayama’s work live completely in the moment. Yet they seek both the immediacy of sensual pleasure and the elusive gratification of intimacy.
In Lovin’ Cup a woman lays back on a pillow while a man crouches down to pour wine between her legs. The man’s face is hidden as he labors at his task, while the woman, though on her back, is at ease. Despite its flirtatious undertone, this simple act, and its slight yet amusing dramatic effect, represent the roles of the woman and the man as two sides of the same coin: one’s desire must be fulfilled, and one whose labor is a desperate attempt to please her.
Bandito features a mustachioed guitar player lost in creative reverie while two women playfully fondle and lick his penis. Is his expression—eyes closed, hands ready at his instrument—a true indicator of musical inspiration, or is it his stoical masking of the pleasure he feels from the action taking place below, his last moment before orgasmic release? As spectators, we are made to feel ambivalent about the nature of drama Nakayama intertwines.
In Totally Bored, a young woman lays about in pillows, her attractive torso pushed forward, breasts surging, yet caught in the middle of a yawn. Like Olympia, she is a child of pleasure, in this case sloth, and her servant is a large Humpty Dumpty doll with eyes askew and mouth barely open yet smiling, as if he were putting on a brave show of patience for this beautiful yet jaded lady.
Nakayama’s images are meant for the spectator. Her characters’ nakedness is meant to disarm us, and to dramatize the overt nature of erotic overture while questioning the idiosyncrasy of emotional projection. One direction leads to the solipsism of lust, the other to the empathy of introspection.