Kids in latex, enfant terrible or Trevor Brown. Part II

See Part I

As I promised in the first part, I published my favourite drawing (along with 30 more below). The drawing on the left was the first Trevor’s work I’ve ever seen. And I was immediately bought by this fantastically cute, aesthetic, harmonic and surprisingly realistic combination of things (like bondage, innocence, latex, teddy bear, young girl, etc) never ever combinable in the real world. I immediately fell in love with this picture and started my investigation towards the origin.

I thought that I was only one of a few who seen the drawings of the cute latex clad kid until I stumbled upon very familiar looking tattoos. Some time later I realized that I was one of the huge army of Trevor’s fans. Tattoos, illustrations, CD/DVD and book covers, exhibitions… In one word – cult.

There are practically no indifferent people. One half hates his art, the other one loves it. The interviews (see the links below) shed some light on the reasons.

Trevor:

I think there’s some very blatant humour in much (if not all) my work and I’m surprised when people totally manage to overlook that .

The he “repeats” what I was always saying about the fetish materials like latex and nylon. It’s not the materials what make the clothes look “sexy”. There are no “sexy” materials, there are no absolute fetish clothes. It’s the brain what makes it look “sexy”, “cute” or “abominable”.

Trevor:

Just one little step further to the “she deserved it because she looks like whore” mentality of thinking? At least if it wasn’t for the fact she’s a (doll-like approximation of a) child, which carries it’s own set of over-riding automated responses. Personally I’m not sure how much this is due to “human nature” or prurient media conditioning. In my old home country of England you get the Sunday gutter press launching campaigns with screaming editorials to “name and blame” sex offenders. Then flip the page and you get a barrage of advertisements for telephone sex, etc. and a huge titillating photograph of a barely 18 year old (serving what purpose?). The average reader is oblivious to the two-faced hypocrisy of this. The media is also responsible for making a black eye a symbol of abuse and stockings a symbol of promiscuity. Here in Japan it’s not unusual to see a preteen in stockings (or “knee socks”). And for acclimatised long-term ex-pats like myself the response doesn’t go beyond “doesn’t she look cute.”

Utterly more eloquent, but basically the same what I meant here, here and here. Hypocrisy and lie.

About the girl with a black eye:

Who said she was a victim of child abuse? How do people immediately come to that conclusion? They are making the sinister associations, not me (yet I get the blame for them!). There could be countless innocent reasons how she came to have a black eye. Kids are prone to accidents and injuries of one sort or another. No one would think twice about a child with grazed knees or even a broken arm. Also the images are just dressing-up make-belief – cosplay! She’s variously a nurse, a punk, a witch, a cowgirl, a soldier etc. Wouldn’t it be likely that the black eye is pretend too?

See also:

• Interview with Trevor Brown. Part I
• Interview with Trevor Brown. Part II