#leah emery

Upside Down #4 by Leah Emery, 2014.

(Embroidery thread on Aida cloth.)

Perhaps not the most comfortable position to receive oral sex, but mainstream pornography skimps on cunnilingus and depictions of women’s pleasure in general, so we should be grateful for what we have, right?

Emery’s needlework reconstructs spam images she received while working as a video game developer.

I sought to utilize this predominantly phallocentric imagery through a medium that had its roots in feminine tradition to juxtapose the confrontational world of sex and smut with the graceful qualities of laborious and beautiful craft work. Topics of a sexual nature are still socially taboo, despite being a necessary component of human existence, particularly thanks to increasing internet censorship of seemingly benign material. To view my work is an invitation to voyeurism as the viewer is confronted with the unsettling experience of publicly looking at imagery that on face value should be consumed privately and secretly.

(Source)

If ever there’s a smutty remake of Bonnie and Clyde, I suspect the aesthetic will match Emery’s 2013 piece, Green Car.