Nathan Carter, Dan Estabrook and Mercedes Jelinek Demon Of Darkness, 2023
Watercolor, pencil, ink, gouache on inkjet print
48 x 33 cm (18 7/8 x 13 in) (unframed)
54,2 x 39,5 x 2,5 cm (21 3/8 x 15 1/2 x 1 in) (framed)
54,2 x 39,5 x 2,5 cm (21 3/8 x 15 1/2 x 1 in) (framed)
This work is from a series of photographs Nathan Carter has produced in a collaborative project with Dan Estabrook and Mercedes Jelinek. Describing it as a seance-like process, Carter conjures and channels an alter ego, MARS The Goddess of Sex and Death, as “the woman who I am” in séance-like photo sessions. The work is unique and hand-tinted.
The project developed in 2020, when Carter and Estabrook staged a series of photographs, images and portraits of Carter conjuring MARS The Goddess of Sex and Death as she explores her trans-identity. Joined by Jelinek in 2021, the development of MARS The Goddess of Sex and Death can be traced in carefully choreographed sets and attributes.
The series of photographs picture MARS The Goddess of Sex and Death in various situations and erotically charged poses. Endowed with a set of recurring markers—a large, disheveled wig, batwing eyes, spiky fingernails, fishnet stockings, short skirts, stiletto heels, a silver skull and cross bones emblazoned on her black cape—MARS looks out at the spectator at times playfully, seductively, or defiantly.
The representations draw on a wide range of historical imagery: Weimar erotica, Cecil Beaton or Madame Yevonde 1920s portraits of British aristocrats, Parisian trans women photographed in the 1960s by Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm, surrealist photography by Pierre Molinier, and images of 1980s intentional communities and postpunk subcultures.
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