www.delucafineart.blogspot.com
www.delucafineart.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Photography Series Exhibition and Book Launch:
“Behind the Whip: Dominatrix, Portraits and Words” by Maria Coletsis
Toronto, May 10, 2011 – This exhibition is a startling collection of photographs and book launch of one of Canada's freshest new voices in contemporary photography by Maria Coletsis. The exhibition will run from May 26th to May 29th, 2011. De Luca Fine Art | Gallery is hosting the Photography Series Exhibition and Book Launch: “Behind the Whip: Dominatrix, Portraits and Words” on Thursday, May 26th, 2011 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 1153-A Queen Street West, Unit 203, Toronto. Please R.S.V.P. to invite@delucafineart.com
“Behind the Whip: Dominatrix, Portraits and Words” is a series of photographs and interviews involving dominatrix taken on location in major cities in North America, Europe and Asia. These photo essays present an intimate look at the women, their words, and their dungeons. These women discuss in the interviews why they choose to do what they do, who their clients are, and the services they provide as well as how their services uniquely represent the city in which they work.
Bondage and fetish photography are associated with ritualized role-playing but also with a kind of religious intensity that longs for immortality. The relatively recent popularity in the west of fetish events and clubs have acquired an acceptable air of social approval due in part to writers like Foucault, Baudrillard, George Bataille and others, who see this as a necessary outlet for suppressed imagination.
The origins of the erotic rituals of Bondage, Domination and Sadomasochism are obscure. We have records of ritual flagellations called “Diamastigosis” at the shrine of Artemis Orthia in Ancient Sparta (in Greece) in the ninth century BCE. It is from the archaic period of pre-Olympian Greece and appears to be a replacement for the ritual of human sacrifice itself.
Maria Coletsis presents this world clearly in photographs, which are entirely from an observer’s standpoint without being seduced by its fantasy elements or attempting to present the participants as anything other than what they are pretending to be. This book is about our time and some of our current inflexions of both so old and new activities.
Maria Coletsis works with issues concerned with identity and sexuality. Since receiving her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, she has exhibited her artwork in galleries internationally. Her photographs were included in the 2010 East London photography festival and have been published in many international magazines and newspapers. Her work has been featured on CBC Radio3, webzine. She continues to investigate and photograph subculture groups. Her work will also be exhibited at book launches in three other cities, London, England on May 5th, Vancouver, British Columbia on May 18th and at the De Luca Fine Art | Gallery in Toronto, Ontario on May 26th, 2011.
De Luca Fine Art | Gallery, established in 2004, is located at 1153-A Queen Street West, in the heart of the Queen West Gallery District in Toronto and is dedicated to representing and introducing Italian and International Artists to Canadian. In collaboration with select Italian Galleries, De Luca Fine Art | Gallery introduces established and emerging Canadian Artists to Italy. De Luca Fine Art | Gallery’s mandate is “representing a bridge between Cultures”.
For more information regarding this event and/or our services, consultation, and art rental program please visit www.delucafineart.com or follow us on www.twitter.com/delucafineart or www.delucafineart.blogspot.com
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For media inquiries please contact:
Corrado De Luca
corrado@delucafineart.com
T: (1) 416-728-4408
Welcome to the artwork of Maria Coletsis. Primarily using photography, Maria is an artist who also incorporates in her diverse works: painting, digital media and computer installations. She has exhibited her work in galleries around the world and has had her work published in many international magazines and newspapers. Working from Vancouver, Maria continues to investigate and photograph subculture themes. She has been documenting Vancouver's Burlesque community for a decade and has exhibited that work internationally, creating marijuana pin-ups for countless magazines and calendars and exploring the fetish scene of London. She is currently promoting her photo book and short film entitled, Behind The Whip : Dominatrix. To view the Behind the Whip video trailer Click here. "Behind the Whip" is a photography book of portraits and interviews taken on location, in the city and dungeon of each participating global Dominatrix. To do so, Maria traveled to the City's of London, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Sidney, Hong Kong,.Bangkok, Montreal and Glasgow to interview and photograph the Mistresses.
