For those looking for existential/actual porn, welcome Kaj-anne Pepper AKA their drag persona “Pepper Pepper”. Pepper (IG: @ThePepperPepper) is a queer portraitist and performance artist who “loves butts, collage and digital manipulation.” The breadth of Pepper’s art is comprehensive: working in video, drag, installation, theatre and dance, they walk the line between classic campy cabaret, dada poetics, a very intense dash of vulnerability, augmented with exquisite tech touches, including filmic and theatrical pageantry dripping with faux gems very real warmth.
“I definitely work in the beat generation’s ‘cut-up’ technique, which was pioneered by Brion Gysin and William Burroughs,” says Pepper. “I do a fair bit of self-portraiture, which is expected as someone who has worked in drag. I’ve been thinking about my digital-diva-self for a long time—how it is an extension of my body, a collection of these floating images connected to my desire to be seen in some way at some point. My work on paper is often a meditation that may or may not have any relationship to my theatrical work, except for the fact I’m a body considering the idea of another person’s body which is often present in my work.
I’ve been drawing a lot of butts sourced from the internet or from friends. Lately I’ve been doing a #buttraiser: I take other peoples #buttselfies and redraw them and post them on the internet and use that as a vehicle to ask for donations to a local food charity. I like the idea of an ass in service to the community. I like the idea that an ass can be put to work in many ways. I like how an image of an ass is often an invitation, depending on the light.”
Invitation aka Ass Economy, 2020: “This one is about the internet and asking for tokens.”
In extension, 2020: “It’s like a telephone echo!”
2019 A Cut-Up with the sky. Mixing a skyline from another collage on top of a still from a commercial I produced.
2019 Thinking about “Nature Is Always Queer” – Peter Hobbs. Used this skyline for a self-portrait.
Skysthelimit, 2019: “I must have been on a roll with that sky idea. I love that the figure became a window.”
CainMarkoandMadame, 2018: “I asked if I could mix my roommate’s painting with my pornstar friend’s silhouette.”
Self-portrait, 2016
See more at ThePepperPepper.com.
