An interview with Ester Kärkkäinen and Harriet K. Morgan
By KLLR DNTST
Ester Kärkkäinen and Harriet K. Morgan talk about the process and intent behind their visual work in the show Mirror vs. mold, a multi-layered, multi-media exhibition held last February in Brooklyn.
Morgan is an experimental noise musician and painter from Australia, also known as Military Position. She developed a series of mixed media collages, entitled “The Blindness of Love,” that include watercolors and tear outs from old lad mags; her work dissects the male gaze and desexualizes the sex worker by highlighting the absurd aspects of gentlemen magazines.
Kärkkäinen is an artist and experimental noise musician from the Nevada Desert who goes by the name of Himukalt. Her work features meticulous black and white, cut up collages (reminiscent of cubism), conceptual portraits, and xerox-saturated ephemera.
Harriet K. Morgan
Ester, your collages have a distinct aesthetic to them. They are analog, black and white, and feature nude women. What was your visual arts background like growing up?
Ester: I took a few art classes in high school and junior college. Photography and drawing were my primary interests. There was also one electronic music class. Other than that, everything has been self-directed and through a lot of trial and error. I use empty toner cartridges in a xerox machine to distress images, take self-portraits with proper lighting and posing, and watch Photoshop tutorials on YouTube.
In 2014, I started Himukalt and set up a Tumblr page. I found the overload of images helpful. I posted appropriated nudes and my own photography smeared through xerox. My work, back then, walked a thin line between porn, erotica, and art. In 2018, Tumblr purged its platform of what they deemed as “porn.” In that purge, pretty much all of my pieces got eliminated. If a piece had a nude female body, it was gone. I shifted my social media presence from Tumblr to Instagram. The collages are cut in a way that evades censor bots, though I have been hit once or twice. I do not think of this as a means to appease the censors, but I do take it into account. Privately, I have an entirely, separate body of work that I do not publicly show but include in my albums.
When I view your work, the cut techniques you employ remove the underlying image’s erotic sensibilities, what is the process behind your collage work?
Ester: It is not my intention to remove the eroticism. My work is still erotic, but a different
kind of eroticism. Making collage brings up all sorts of emotions in me: desire, jealousy, hostility, bitterness, neglect, loneliness, resentment. There is a lot of repetition and echoes; I am processing the constant bombardment of sexually explicit material that is all around me. I am trying to purge these emotions and sublimate them into my art.
I notice your work features various body sizes and shapes. Is there a message or intent behind that?
Ester: Women come in all different shapes and sizes. I believe sexuality and body image should not be limited to what is dictated through the media. Women are able to determine their own sexuality and express that, regardless of body size. I try not to force the collages “to speak,” rather I let the subjects communicate through their gestures, faces, and bodies.
You recently published an oral account of sex worker stories from across the globe, aptly titled Sex Worker that includes collages, xerox art, and narratives. What prompted you to start the book?
Ester: I used to strip when I was much younger. Parts of it were thrilling, other parts were exhausting and miserable, such as losing loved ones to suicide. By the end, I felt like a broken person.
Sex Worker is an ongoing, psychological study. I am not interested in the objective details of sex work, rather I am interested in its qualitative aspects. For example: how sex workers feel, how they perceive their clients, and how their friends and families treat them. The questions are fluid and change depending on the individual. I am keen on discovering how it is understood in different cultures. Currently, the project only features English speakers, though some women are Dutch and Romanian. I certainly think this project can be expanded to include voices from many more parts of the world.
ester käkkäinen
ester käkkäinen
Harriet, what is your visual arts background?
Harriet: I studied at VCA (Victorian College of the Arts - University of Melbourne). I did painterly things there. I knew what I liked but I didn’t have the gumption to make work like the minimalists or Rothko because it wasn't my language and because it just seemed powerless. At the same time, abstraction’s empty spaces and quietness is what I love.
Who and what are your creative influences?
Harriet: I follow a few artists like Richard Prince, Darja Bajagic, Phillip Guston, Amalia Ulman and Isa Genskin. I like pop art and some post-war artists like Rauschenberg and Sigman Polke, and then I look at my peers.
For Mirror vs. mold, you created a series of mixed media collages entitled “The Blindness of Love” that incorporate erotic newspaper clippings from the 80s and 90s. How did this series come about?
Harriet: It began from feeling objectified. The way I represent women in my work is sheerly aesthetic, but I am personally moved by them, I admire them. These women work hard for their bodies and must have had a lot of resiliency to stay in the industry back then. It was probably hell. I reproduce imagery from different eras in almost an unrecognizable way. I like using advertisements as source material because they look the way I want them to. I love the “blonde bombshell” look, like Pamela Anderson—there’s something really generic about it.
Is your visual art an extension of the music you make?
Harriet: Yes, all of it functions like one monochromatic series. I perform as Military Position. I did a show which was an ode to Vagina Dentata Organ, as well as one where I pissed into a bucket and made watercolors with the piss and gave them to people.
For more on Mirror vs. mold
visit Killer-dentist.com or @other.subjects
For the exhibition documentation on The Brvtalist, visit here.
For more on Ester Kärkkäinen
see @himukalt
For more Harriet K. Morgan
Harriet K Morgan