Instagram, at its best, is more than just a simple way of documenting a person's existence via selfies and the occasional fam shot. It's also a viable platform for emerging visual artists of many different styles and disciplines, each one eschewing the traditional trappings of lesser 'grams by constantly providing their followers with engaging and undeniably original content.
For Oakland-based artist Stephanie Sarley, the opportunity to slyly reinvent the 'gram presented itself when she least expected it. "My boyfriend handed me an orange and I just started playing with it, then decided to make a video," Sarley told the Daily Dot Monday. "The penetration and the blood... I wasn't even aware of those associations. After I create an art piece, I'll learn about it through other people viewing it, or just through myself reflecting on it. I wasn't even aware of the impact it was going to have on people."
The impact of Sarley's fruit-fingering art, which eventually enlisted the sensuous power of many other semi-erotic fruits, was massive. The videos, often emulated but never matched, have earned Sarley an Instagram following of more than 64,000 dedicated fans. "It's okay to turn people on," Sarley said. "I don't want to be serious about my art 100 percent. Titillation is fun, and sexualization of fruit is great, and that makes me really happy."
Sadly, Sarley's work has also attracted the constant bombardment of trolls. But Sarley, whose original blood orange video was described by renown art critic Jerry Saltz as "genius" last year, isn't sweating their attempts at distraction. "I think women are trolled more on the Internet, period," Sarley told the Dot. "Men do get trolls, but especially as a woman, dealing with the female body, and you're saying something about the vagina and the vulva, it's very personal. It's a touchy subject. Feminism is controversial for people. It's my work. If it has to be worked out controversially, that's okay." The solution for keeping those trolls at bay? Simple. "I just don't let it get to my core," Sarley said. "I just block, block, block."
For young women who find themselves inspired by her success as an uncompromising visual artist, Sarley has some words of advice. "Focus on what art means to you," she said. "Channel anything hard that’s happening to you with school or family or relationships into art, and that will help carry you." For more on Stephanie Sarley's work, visit her official website and then immediately follow her endlessly fascinating 'gram.
