Verbal Description: Anti-Mater, 2023

Narrator: This black and white photograph from 2023, entitled Anti-Mater, depicts a naked woman in a field who is a friend of the artist. At 4 feet high and 5 feet wide, the work itself is very large. A visitor could be matched in size by the image that appears on its surface. The figure is sprawled out, lying on her back and masturbating, with her bottom half facing the viewer so her torso and head recede back in space. She has light skin that is contoured by shadows, and she appears to be of light-to-average weight. Her knees are open to each side, creating a kind of symmetrical, centered shape. Her stomach and chest are illuminated by the sun overhead, creating a pool of light against the darker grass that surrounds her. Her head is thrown back, with one arm bent up over her face. The other arm stretches down, her hand partly covering a patch of dark bushy pubic hair. 

Mark Armijo McKnight: She's pleasuring herself in a field. I wanted this image of her totally engrossed in self-pleasure. It could be seen as exhibitionistic, but also it's a photograph that feels like she is totally directed inward. She's both in this landscape, but also totally inside herself. I think maybe psychologically and emotionally, but also literally her finger is penetrating herself. 

Narrator: Though this erotic scene is rendered head-on, the rich textures throughout are equally dominant. For example: the sloping grey gradient of the woman’s right leg, knee pointed out to the side, heightens the fleshy quality of the figure, including small hairs and colorations on her body since the picture is almost totally in focus. Surrounding her are what seem to be hundreds of small white flowers, whose tone matches the more highly-lit portions of her body. Most of the flowers face the sun. The figure’s pointed knees and raised elbow all create upward pointing triangles that, together with the flowers, seem to gesture skyward, towards the light source. These upward forces may suggest more metaphysical themes as well. 

Mark Armijo McKnight: I wanted her to feel like she was in ecstasy.

Narrator: The artist also points out a small but important detail at the center of the work.

Mark Armijo McKnight: Meanwhile, there's all these bugs that are crawling up her body towards the orifice, towards this site of pleasure that maybe also suggest the photograph as an abjection, but maybe her connection to the natural world and also her mortality. I think typically when we think of a body vertically against dirt, covered in bugs, I think that evokes for us an image of death more than anything. But I think in the photograph, she's very much alive.

What I'm interested in is making images of sex that suggest transcendence, something spiritual that connects us simultaneously and maybe paradoxically to ourselves and our interior lives, but also the natural world to which we belong that ultimately becomes a stage and/or vehicle for these kinds of experiences. The title, Anti-Mater, also I think has so much to do with thinking about the way that women have historically been depicted in relation to the natural world. The word mater, M-A-T-E-R, in Latin it means both mother, but it also means matter. This idea of, quote, unquote, Mother Nature, for example. I wanted to make an image and give it a title that refused some of those conventions or played with or prodded this archetype.