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Victoria Van Dyke uses guns to represent penises, crosses and other patriarchal images. She collages together pictures from porn websites, erotica websites, gun advertisements to create new works of social commentary. In her newest works first shown in January 2006, this becomes most evident. In Blowjob #01 Van Dyke uses a gun to represent a penis which has just ejaculated and cum spills down the woman's face. The barrel of the pistol acts as a semi-erect penis that has just "shot its load". The piece itself is commentary on the male obsessions with guns and their penises and the similarity of how both "shoot" until they are spent. In Blowjob #02 she attaches a small erect penis to the woman's shoulder and uses Untitled #3 as a border around the image. The penis appears to be a strange giant wart on her shoulder, like an unwanted pimple that she can't get rid of. But at the same time the piece presents an interesting metaphor for masturbation, in which she can literally give herself a blowjob and bring herself to orgasm. Brazil is a commentary upon the shaved vs unshaved crotches of women. The folds of skin inbetween images creates a 2nd vaginal shaped image on the horizontal plane, thus creating 6 vaginas in a circle. The word brazil refers to the tradition of Brazilian women shaving their whole crotch area. Shaved crotches are also favoured by lesbians. In the Genesis series the female torso twists and turns, multiplies like amoeba and eventually creates Jesus. Evolution is considered to be blasphemous by the Catholic Church and in this piece Ms Van Dyke manages to incorporate both evolution and Christianity, an idea which is guaranteed to offend religious wackos (they get offended easily). Legs #01 contrasts the legs of a chair with the legs of a female. You'll notice the image is the same from the Cunt series as well as Untitled #03. In the Ms America series Van Dyke uses vintage erotica, pornography and a picture of women in the Iranian Army and american flags to symbolize American aggression and imperialism. She also uses the Russian AK-47 assault rifle (considered to be the best assault rifle ever made) to represent masculine desires for war and imperialism, as well as a symbol for the male penis and libido. In Oedipussy she makes fun of the James Bond movie "Octopussy" and makes reference to Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex. In The First Kiss she takes an Andy Warhol look at the first interracial kiss ever shown on television, the kiss of Captain Kirk and Uhura from the 1960s Star Trek television show. The first kiss is still controversial even today due to racial tensions. In Virgin Mary she shows Joseph looking at a nude virgin Mary, and his face appears rather lustful. Having a child out of wedlock during ancient times was punishable by death, so its no wonder Mary claimed it was an "immaculate conception" when in reality Jesus Christ was just a bastard and a charlatan. Rather than explain every work shown here, we shall leave you to interpret the works on your own level. You may see other things that we haven't noticed. We wouldn't want to spoil all your fun. Victoria Van Dyke's collages make excellent desktop backgrounds for your computer. About the Artist: Victoria Van Dyke was raised in South-Western Ontario and moved to Toronto in her twenties. When she was very young she was sexually abused and raped by her foster brother and her foster father. Both men are still free today and have never been convicted of sexual abuse. Ms Van Dyke is very concerned about the number of men who commit sexual assault or rape but are never convicted due to so-called "lack of evidence" and "she-said he-said" testimonies. One out of every three women are sexually assaulted at some point during their lifetime, but less than one in thirty ever press charges against the person who assaulted them. Of those charged, less than 20% even go to prison in which case prison sentences for sexual assault and rape are surprisingly short (only a couple years for first time offenders). Otherwise Van Dyke is an amateur artist with no professional training. You can see a complete listing of her artwork, including her earlier works, here.
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