Con(tra)ception!
Con(tra)ception is an artwork conceived by me—yes, conceived; yes it’s my brainchild. Enough with the wordplay you’d think.. except that wordplay is exactly where this artwork began.
It all started when it struck me- the words Conception and Contraception—sound so similar, yet represent two completely opposite ideas: one about creation and the other about prevention!
As often happens in my creative process, one association led to another. I noticed that Smoke rings and Condoms share an uncanny visual resemblance.
Suddenly, the linguistic metaphor had found its visual counterpart. And the parallels didn’t stop there.
Layered onto the original wordplay was another contradiction: Smoking is injurious especially to the unborn child. So in addition to the visual identity, the smoke rings took the conceptual identity of a condom- Smoking during pregnancy is as good as contraception!
In that moment, language, form, and meaning all converged.
That’s how Con(tra)ception was conceived.
This piece is especially close to my heart as it represents my creative process so well, which is never linear; it follows a continuum where one thought immediately spirals into the next, each association extrapolating from the previous one until seemingly unrelated ideas begin to converge.
PS: The cigarette light was shot separately so the model did not consume the lit cigarette during this shoot ever!