Ina Jang

‘Utopia’ is based on the pictures of Japanese gravure idols found online. Gravure (グラビア) usually refers to visual materials – magazines, posters, photo books, DVDs, etc. – that feature young female models who often wear bikinis or lingerie in suggestive poses. I focused on the specificity in the poses and compositions in the source material to analyze its language, by cutting out the silhouettes, then place them in gradations I created. The overfamiliarity of passive female figures in the work questions the general visual representation of Asian women, while bright colors, metaphorical shapes and anonymity evoke a range of playfulness, shyness, seduction and promiscuity.