Mia Capodilupo

Untitled Tongue Coverings Series
c-print of lace object
8 x 10 in.

When I made the tongue coverings series I was thinking a lot about the tongue and the mouth, and about problematizing a woman’s mouth, which is so often sexualized and used seductively in advertising ad popular culture. I made about 20 different covers that fit around my tongue, some were funny but some looked more grotesque and painful, using materials ranging from food to fabric to steel wool (in this piece it was lace).

I was also thinking about fashion and trying to choose a site on my body that is not usually associated with clothing to comment on the ways in which the body is acted on, contorted and molded by culture and how culture compels us to participate in practices that objectively may seem completely bizarre.

The idea of drawing in the viewer and also pushing him/her away is central to the piece. In my work I always explore the simultaneous human desire for and intense fear of intimacy in both a sexual and emotional sense, addressing the body in a visceral way by creating objects that interact with and influence it. The element of touch has always played an important role in my work as I examine both ideas of hunger and desire and the need for control, all with a playful (or dark) sense of humor.

© Mia Capodilupo