19 june - 13 July 2024

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Ariella Napoli

fear my pleasure

fear my pleasure is an existing body of work produced for the 2023 UNISA Graduation Exhibition: Coalesce. The artwork consists of yellowish and off-white abstract and biomorphic forms, some propped delicately on the wall by metal spikes, and some composed on the floor with found metal objects. The forms are made from a combination of expanding foam and plaster-filled condoms created with pressure and traction between rope and my body.

The work aims to celebrate pleasure unbound by Essentialist assumptions of human experience and explore ideas of submission/dominance, constriction/expulsion, and stricture/agency. The work was produced to unpack Audre Lorde’s notions of the erotic while expressing personal experiences of feeling subservient to dominant patriarchal systems. The artwork acknowledges existing discrimination and oppression while celebrating the beautiful moments and feelings when we burst or ooze out of these constraints and are allowed to express ourselves freely.

Artist Biography

Ariella Napoli (She / her) ’s practice investigates sculptural forms that connect the body to conceptual ideas of power and pleasure. She explores oppressive patriarchal systems and the policing of gender and sexual expression to better understand her internal dialogue around sex and identity. Informed by post-essentialist theories and BDSM writers, Ariella is motivated by her internal struggle with feelings of submitting to dominant influences around her. She reflects on how institutional ideologies, normalised representations of gender, and idealised ideas about sex, work to dictate the experience of individuals. 

Ariella’s latest enquiry delves into the world of pleasure and queer joy, investigating contrasting notions of constriction and expulsion, stricture and agency, and submission and dominance. This approach attempts to dismantle internalized white and male-serving ideological structures. Currently, Ariella utilises the combination of alternative materials such as expanding foam, plaster, zip ties, and found objects, that immortalize moments of pressure while expressing some agency in their final form.

Instagram: @ariella.napoli.art

Photographed by Christine Poon