FOUR NEW PRINTS BY HELEN BEARD, AVAILABLE TO BUY ONLINE FROM 10:00AM GMT WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH
"When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives." Audre Lorde 'The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power' 1978
It’s not demure, and it’s not how women were supposed to be seen as having that desire in them. It was really frowned upon for women to express that. I think that, only recently, a lot of women are realising that they can talk about sex. People concentrate on the fact that it’s titillating because a woman’s made work on desire. And it shouldn’t be that. The more that women deal with the subject matter, I think will take away the stigma. Because we’re all humans, we’ve all got the same desires, it shouldn’t be any different for a woman to talk about this subject than a man.
I used to hate my work being referred to as pornographic, and also I used to hate it being referred to as erotic. I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. But I did read Audre Lorde's essay about the power of the erotic recently, and actually, I think I’m much more comfortable with the term ‘erotic’ now, and I don’t mind that label. Because she talks about it being a lifeforce of creativity, eroticism is that, and a female lifeforce. You know, it’s what creates us all, there isn’t anything more important.