Tallulah Chellew

Tallulah Chellew

This year in Studio Arts I unpacked the idea of ‘phallic fascination’ which explores the themes of fetishisation, consumerism, feminism, the patriarchy and mental illness. Sexual trauma has a profound impact on sexuality and sexual conditioning which is further intensified by the patriarchy in which we live. I examined the grandiose connotations of phallic potency associated with the patriarchy using the motif of the phallus. This overt iconography of maleness, so present in society becomes subverted in the act of entering, possessing and occupying the female body.  The body reacts by replacing previous ideological connotations, view the phallus as an irreverent object of ideation and repulsion; a symbol that lays between the sacred and the profane. Rather than a realistic representation, I depicted the archetype of the phallus in the mind of a sexually abused person. My work incorporates and questions ideas of contemporary art in relation to psychotherapy and psychiatry, including symptoms, diagnoses and treatments. Dissociation is a natural response to trauma. Its symptoms can include identity confusion; identities shift and change, de-realisation; where nothing feels real, alive or stable; depersonalisation; boundaries between oneself and others are blurred and parts of one’s body and emotions become disconnected. Through the work, this emotional disconnect is re-personify mirroring object-focused commodification and fetishism, overt pornography and deification. The making of art to me is a cathartic process and an emotional purge. I live out my thoughts and emotions - often negative - my finished work leaving me frustrated and disappointed. This work expresses my struggles, exploring them in a fetishistic fantastic exhalation.