Her Sex Was Like a Giant Hothouse Flower
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
The Brooklyn-based artist Megumi Nagai has developed a distinctive technique for painting on polished wood. She often draws forms from traditional Japanese art, and here she uses imagery from Buddhist depictions of Hell combined with the basic structure of a Buddhist mandala. The Japanese term rinne names the cycle of human life, death, and rebirth, known as samsara in Sanskrit. Buddhism teaches that in samsara or rinne, bodily pleasures, represented here by erotic imagery, are distractions that prevent people from escaping to a higher realm.
MEDIUM
Etching and aquatint on paper
DATES
2004
DIMENSIONS
sheet: 9 x 7 in. (22.9 x 17.8 cm)
image: 7 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. (19.1 x 14.0 cm)
ACCESSION NUMBER
2012.70.1
CREDIT LINE
Gift of the artist
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
EDITION
Edition: 38/45 of a boxed set containing nine (9) prints, a tri-fold cover printed with title, introduction and colophon, a heart-shaped box.
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