It surely isn’t pornography, nor ‘Erotica’ in the usual sense, and it’s not even really about sexuality – and yet: we are talking about a book with the vulva as it’s only subject.Dutch artist Christina Camphausen has published a book this month that contains almost her complete oeuvre. Her work consists of delicate drawings, revealing the vulva in all her variety and beauty – often with very realistic images, sometimes with a touch of symbolism.
The artist prefers the name Yoni, a term from India’s sacred language (Sanskrit), because the rather unique word carries an inherent respect for this intimate part of a woman’s body. In the book’s accompanying texts, the artist makes clear that there’s nothing about the Yoni to be ashamed of. Rather, it is a body-part which – in many cultures, has had totally different connotations: power, beauty, fertility; delight.
The hardbound book (128 pages, 30 x 23 cm) is called Yoni Portraits: The Intimate Art of Christina Camphausen and is being published privately.
The almost fifty refined drawings, made with (soluble) color pencils, are accompanied by selected and well fitting quotations from sacred texts and other sources – Eastern and Western. One also finds explanations of all exotic terminology, bio- and bibliographical information – as well as a fascinating and modern fairytale concerning the differences between one vulva and another. The story very much fits the purpose of the book, considering that the word ‘portraits’ has been consciously chosen to indicate that a Yoni is as different from others, as individual, as are faces.Find the book here.
