SEX EDUCATION
PIGO LIN & EMMA BARDUCCI
Pigo Lin is a Taiwanese artist whose erotic creations are rich with desire. His fantastical illustrations merge a vast range of influences from Chungong painting, surrealism and sci-fi. “I’m inspired by Japanese Manga and artists like Toshio Saeki and Suemiro Maruo,” he told Cluster, “I want my work to demonstrate my own desire, to strip it back to its purest and simplest forms.”
Shake hands | 2021
Combining digital and analogue methods, he begins by collecting inspiration, which comes from comics or real life. Next, he uses photoshop to create an initial sketch and match colours, before finalising his ideas on watercolour paper using fine brushes and coloured ink. For Lin, his illustrations carry an intense emotional weight, compounded by all kinds of cultural complexities. “In Asian culture, sex is approached in a vague and shameful way,” he explains, “simultaneously the simplest and most difficult act, it consists of a complex physical and psychological merging, the sublimation of the superego.”
New York | 2020
His piece, ‘New York 2020’, implicates the landscape in his desire, with iconic New York emblems made sexual. A long-limbed woman sits atop of a steaming yellow taxi cab in a skimpy NYPD uniform, whilst a gushing fire hydrant reaches a climax in the background. Meanwhile, the towering phallus of the Empire State watches on quietly amused, a silent witness to its own urban peepshow.
Cyprinoid Jump Over Dragon Door | 2019
“I’ve found many talented artists through Cluster,” Lin told us, “I like how they showcase their artists, and I’m grateful for their invitation.” After two group shows in New York, Lin’s most recent project involved collaboration with the contemporary fashion designer Ray Chu. Showcased at London Fashion week, the collection ‘Centipede Love’ featured an exclusive new design of Lin’s - ‘Mating Centerpide’ - a motif that comes to represent the epicentre of all sexuality.
Dancing in the moonlight
Likewise, the work of Italian artist Emma Barducci finds solace in the sexual. A recent advertising graduate of the IED in Florence, Barducci has had an illustrative inclination from a young age. “My passion started very early. As a child, nothing grabbed me like a blank sheet of paper to be smeared with all kinds of colour.” During her time in University, she never wasted an opportunity to develop her projects through drawing.
Her series ‘Taboo’ discards the societal shame of sex by codifying sexual anatomy into something quotidian and universally accepted - the alphabet. “Contemporary society, especially in Italy, encourages us to fear sex, still considering it taboo,” she explains, “I want to make it clear that sex is not only a pleasure but a form of love for oneself. People need sex education to be aware of their own sexuality and, above all, to respect that of others.”
Taboo
Favouring digital methods, Barducci works with software like Illustrator and Procreate, experimenting with different styles and colour palettes. Her work positions itself as a question that challenges viewers to reflect on their own biases. “Only through questions can we change our opinions, often we get it wrong because we have failed to ask the right questions.”
Currently, Barducci is working on expanding her technique through experimentation, while undertaking a variety of personal projects. Through Cluster, she hopes to find a community to collaborate and learn from. “Being part of a community of illustrators has always been my dream,” she told us, “I’m still a beginner, so being in contact with seasoned professionals will be very useful for my personal and professional growth.”
Blooming
By confronting desire head-on, these artists are challenging the cultural stigma around sex in their respective cultures and far beyond. In transforming taboo, they have liberated acceptance from the grips of denial and manifested unadulterated beauty where there was once shame; a ‘lessons in sexology’ that Madonna herself could be proud of.
Work by both Pigo Lin and Emma Barducci can be viewed on the Cluster Illustration platform
Thank you for reading,
Stephanie Gavan & Cluster Team.