Written By: MIM!—Avid pop culture followers will instantly recognize the above illustration as a depiction of one of a handful of private camera-phone photos of singer Rihanna that were apparently intended solely for her then boyfriend Chris Brown, but leaked onto the internet only to cause a frenzy. With one finger on the pulse of pop culture, artist Dawn Okoro has long explored elements of pop culture in her work, and her most recent collection, titled Selfsploitation, which delves into the psychology of sending sexually suggestive photos of one's self by cellphone or posting them on social websites, is no different. Dawn says about the project,With the advent of social networking websites people have a medium to express themselves to a wider audience. All it takes is a digital camera, a computer, or a cell phone that has both. Although this behavior was seemingly common place by the early 2000's it was gaining more attention in the media. Celebrity nude cell phone photos were leaked to the public, and some would-be celebrities were able to capitalize off the exposure of what they claimed to be private sex photos and videos. After coming across so many of these sexualized images on social networking sites and hearing about related controversies in the news, I became intrigued and had many questions about this behavior—especially as it pertained to women. To facilitate my understanding, I created the "Selfsploitation" project which is composed of research, an informal survey, drawings, and [an] essay.
We are big fans of artist Dawn Okoro's work, who is featured in our current Best Of issue, and recommend that you get to know the artist by visiting www.DawnOkoro.com to see more from the Selfsploitation collection as well as Dawn's other works.
(Photo Credits: Dawn Okoro)
