Although 2020 was incredibly difficult and 2021 is so far looking to follow in it’s footsteps, there were one or two good things to come out of the extended period of social isolation. One in particular that I can say quite confidently would probably never have happened (at least not for many years down the line) is that I decided to try my hand at self-portrait photography.
Many people know that before I decided to pursue my art and illustration work full-time I was a professional model under the stage name Ulorin Vex for over 15 years (and that career has heavily influenced my art work!). Well before the industry started to embrace body-positivity and even the term “alt model” had yet to become commonplace, I managed to create a place for myself as a freelance model, focusing on fetish/fetish fashion, avant-garde and art nude work. Though it was the elaborate avant-garde and latex fashion imagery that I became most well known for, it was actually the lesser-known art nude and fetish nude work that allowed me to model full-time and provided the most opportunities.
Having modeled for countless photography workshops all over the world, I managed to pick up a lot of information along the way. I also used to regularly style and art-direct many of the shoots I modelled for but I still never really thought to try the photography part until quite recently, when I started thinking about shooting my own reference images instead of relying either on my imagination or borrowing from other people’s photos.
In fact, I had booked myself a place on a photography workshop in Belgium last year, with the intention of shooting other models to use as reference but of course not long before I was due to fly to Europe, Covid put a stop to those plans. So I had this fancy camera and all these ideas lying around for almost a whole year before a creative block with my drawing made me finally decide to try shooting some self-portraits. It was SO good to be back in front of the camera, I had really missed that performance facet of my creativity!
I had originally intended to only use them as reference for paintings but I surprised myself at how well they turned out and decided to add a “photography” gallery to my art website. I hope you enjoy them and that they have a place among the rest of my artwork! As you will notice, several of them are heavily influenced by my drawings!
A few examples to decorate the blog.. click on the thumbs to be taken to the rest of the gallery
