Aiko Robinson

Intimate, erotic and exquisitely detailed, Gow Langsford is delighted to present Aiko Robinson’s latest body of work. Over the past decade, Robinson has developed an image-making practice that delicately balances historic influences with a contemporary aesthetic. Her work is deeply informed by the historic Japanese ukiyo-e tradition of shunga – playfully erotic prints that flourished during the 17th-19th century Edo period. Far from being hidden or clandestine, shunga was widely circulated and enjoyed across all levels of society, reflecting a more open cultural attitude towards sexuality.

 

Drawing upon this legacy, Robinson is interested in exploring how cultural attitudes shape understandings of desire and intimacy. Within contemporary culture, images of an erotic nature often generate negative responses, perhaps due to the dominant narrative regarding pornography that sexual imagery is sinful and a social taboo – a message that is further exacerbated by the amount of problematic and harmful content readily available to us online. In contrast, the term shunga, which translates literally as ‘spring pictures’, evokes positive associations with fertility, renewal and the vitality of new life, celebrating mutual pleasure and equality between sexual partners. By recontextualising shunga influences, Robinson’s art practice reclaims eroticism as a space filled with trust, respect, consent and passion between equal partners of all sexualities.

 

Further details to come; register your details below.