FREYA: What does privacy look feel and sound like-Rika

Rika’s red face

Now it’s out there. I’ve been captured stating how funny it is, to be ‘a Victim of other peoples desires’.  What a fabulous sense of humour I have, painted by Rika and now to be viewed on the Internet.

It was Rika’s red face that drew me to her.  I saw her paintings of how she feels when she goes red in her face and I was drawn into the world of Rika Deyricke.  These paintings are created with the emotion of authenticity, they are real, they are private, not pretty but definitely funny, also horribly uncomfortable, and unfortunately for me, I identify with them.  The thing about going red in your face is that there is no control privacy button to switch it off with.   How to leak your private emotions for everyone to see: at any time, in any place.    Non-go-red-in-the-facers sometimes try to be helpful; they think I don’t know I go red, and say in a kind sounding voice (something like): ‘Freya do you realize that you sometimes go really red in your face?’ They obviously think I can adjust my privacy face setting.

I think Rika’s presentation is great, really watchable and very thought provoking.  There’s so much there, you’ll see Rika captured on film with her own craziness and fun, with a tiny pinch of vulnerability and a depth of thought.  ‘The only truth we have at our disposal is hidden within us, unless of course, we elect to share it with others.’ Rika quotes from Simon Lane.  In the VOME Privacy Workshop for Artist she paints large self-portraits of her emotions, sharing her truth with us on and around her thoughts on privacy.

She really engages us with her verbal commentary on her art, her life and thoughts of why people want to be painted and share of themselves.  However, when she was invited to the workshop, she told me that talking about her art is really outside her own personal comfort zone, she doesn’t like talking about her work.  She normally prefers for people to go see  her exhibitions and draw their own conclusions or for them to access the net to see ‘Rika the artist’ and her work.  She has fluctating comfortzones.

Who is Fred?  (I’ll come back to this.)

When looking through a selection of Rika’s artwork, I couldn’t help but notice that amongst her other work there are images she has created  of explicit sex and some violence.  Her drawings are bold and to the point with clear, strong lines – she doesn’t shy away.  There is something oddly humane about them, which makes them palatable – I too can imagine them being normal folk from around the villages in our region; the baker or, as Rika says, it could be the lady selling cheese at the marked…

Most people would count that having your portrait painted whilst having an orgasm, as sharing a private moment.  Rika has painted portraits of this moment.  This collection is strangely weird and really quite funny to look at.  It is not so often you get to see an orgasm as ‘a still’  or actually come to think of it, in my case, to get to watch someone having an orgasm at all.  These Rika paintings still make me laugh thinking about them, and for some reason they have stuck in my head.

Anyway, there is so much more to Rika’s presentation, so if you haven’t seen it yet, have a look.  In the meantime, I too, as Rika, am without Internet access in the village, and will now need to go and visit people’s homes and private spaces to go on-line and send this off to you.  I’m also just wondering Rika, who is Fred?

Next week I’ll be writing about Justin Durrel’s presentation, so keep tuning in

Freya