To my readers......

SITE UPDATE NOTICE

Thanks for visiting mitchmen, home of Mitchell's Gay Art

The Caps and Collars/ Flat Cap Gang story at Google Groups is on a summer break until July. (see Group News for link)

Message updated 25th June 2023

Tuesday 8 April 2008

Nudity and sex in Mitchell's 'art' - Cactus Kid Caught With a Nugget

I discovered this weekend that someone has created a link to this blog and labelled it as 'porn'.

I was a bit surprised. While my work includes sexual elements I wouldn't characterise it in this way. Many of my pictures don't even have nudity or sex in them and are no more erotic than the average boys comic book! Like the example below.


I'm not offended to be labelled in this way just surprised. I don't have too many illusions about the artistic quality of my work, it's meant to be entertainment not 'Art' but the porn label seems a pretty crude description. I try and keep this blog low key to maximise accessibilty. More exciting stuff is at my Yahoo! group (see sidebar for link)

The sexual act doesn't always feature in my pictures because I think the build up to it is often more interesting. There are so many explicit photo's available and so many talented photographers that I doubt I could add an original image. There doesn't seem any point in trying to.

For the same reason I usually let my characters keep some clothing on. I grew up in a time when nudity was not publishable so that's probably got something to do with it. However, I do feel that with a nude figure, whilst it can be beautiful and sexy, has no identity. The viewer can't connect with what is happening in the picture. Whereas if the figure is wearing something, all sorts of fantasies can be sparked and the viewer starts interacting with the image, not just passively viewing it.

I hope viewers get involved with my characters - it's what they were created for - to be carried off into the viewers mind and there take part in some erotic adventure. If only they could report back to me what had happened to them!

No comments: