Thayanne Tavares Freitas is currently a PhD research student in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

“Bodypaint / pornobomb is body painting mostly done by male graffiti artists on naked or half-naked female bodies. The form of painting I focus on in my research is a form of graffiti, and can be found in several places, with different names, sharing the same aesthetic of the streets, especially in the letters and figures. Yet, after the painting, photos of the women’s bodies are shared on social media in poses that vary from sensual to erotic and pornographic. I got to know the bodypaint / pornobomb art techniques during my master’s degree research, when I followed a women’s and transgender graffiti artists’ collective in Belém (Brazil). 

As a research apprentice of graffiti, I got access to different practices of the art form, including this kind of painting. In this exhibition I present four watercolours of the bodypaint / pornobomb process performed on my interlocutor’s body to highlight the agency of these women in the act of painting and in the production of digital images. The watercolours were produced based on photographs of bodypaints and my fieldwork notebook. They point to dialogues between me and my interlocutor, emphasising her expectations about the painting. The images are part of my PhD research in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul).”