BULGE

What maketh A Man?

‘Bulge’ continued Philip’s exploration into gender and identity through sculpture. It was an art collaboration with fashion photographer Diego Indraccolo that was inspired by popular masculine imagery from 1950's such as the Physique Pictorial magazines and the drawings of Tom De Finland.

‘Bulge’ references our society’s obsession with supersize muscles and hyper-masculine imagery of muscly men. As a comment on how our own body is a constructed sculpture by each and every one of us, Philip created these surreal images to highlight the absurdity in the everyday.

Growing up, I felt the enormous pressure that is placed on young men to develop their bodies in a certain way, or to play sports, or go to gym, to impress their friends and their social circles. Luckily, I was always interested in the arts and music, so that helped me develop in a different way. Once I actively made a decision to not care about muscles and being ‘masc’, I became so much happier. For me, ‘Bulge’ explores the pressure placed onto men and their body image, their penis-size, muscle size, their alpha male-ness etc.

I had just finished making ‘Germination’ which was all about nature, growth and flowers - things are traditionally linked to women. So for this project, I went the opposite way and wanted to explore a side of masculinity, that I would never normally have access to. It’s not the world I inhabit. I just wanted to highlight the artificiality and construction within these ideas of masculinity.

Photography: Diego Indraccolo
Styling: Kay Korsh
Make-up: Yuka Hirata
Hair: Noriko Takayama
Set design + additional props: Eoin Dillon
Artist assistant: Hannah Hopkins