Everything I do is for the Gaze

An artist and her gallerist clash over a proposed exhibition of male nudes.

Roisin and I, frequent collaborators, wanted to explore how the female gaze contrasts with the male gaze, which led us to imagine a story about two women drawing a nude male model and examining desire and objectification. As we talked further, we recognised that our desire wasn’t so literal, prompting research into how the male form has been represented in art history and revealing that most fragmented depictions of the male body were created by men, with little from female-identifying artists. Studying the male nude over time exposed shifting layers of eroticism, shame, and censorship, and both the film and drawings probe these themes, lifting shame through a childlike, high-key palette. Creating the illustrations became such an enjoyable habit that I almost forgot they were originally intended only as set material for the film.