Haley Kerrigan

I create oil paintings of abstracted figures engaged in intimate and sexual scenes. Through these works, I explore how I view myself and my own sexuality. Using source imagery from found pornography, as well as images of my own body, I intertwine myself with the figures from the porn. I explore power dynamics by building complex geometric compositions which create an ambiguity between consent and lack of consent, as well as giving and receiving. In my paintings it is difficult to tell which body parts belong to which figure or if an act is romantic or violent, creating a compositional and narrative vertigo. The unsteadiness of these paintings draws attention to the lines between the physical act of sex and the emotions that are connected to it. My work explores how the experience of the erotic can be divorced from the act of sex or encompass the entire experience of it for two partners in the same moment. In my paintings, multiple bodies become one, for better or for worse, and sometimes with a sense of euphoria, violence, or both.