Lisa McCleary

Through painting, sculpture and installation, I create a space in which self-pleasure, agency, desire and the digital and physical body all come into play. I am interested in the pleasure of flesh and the way that that translates into our desire for our communication devices, and our corporeal relationship to industrial materials. My work evokes pleasure and discusses choice and agency through an investigation of the body. Through the medium of paint I explore distinct aesthetics and capabilities of the flesh. My interests lie within sites that are simultaneously vulnerable and strong, and the indexical quality of affected flesh. The visual imagery I employ approaches both defilement and transcendence to suggest alternative sexuality. I focus on the gestures of hands and fingers to allude to autoeroticism, with the aim of creating an aggressive autonomous body. My practice addresses haptic sensations and the representation and embodiment of touch. The skin and the screen surface work as interchangeable metaphors for both sexual and visual pleasure. I also explore industrial materials and their correlation to BDSM culture, the pattern of scarred flesh and the interface or black mirror. I am searching for a new system of pleasure that is both seductive and repulsive and cultivates an abject experience.