Artist Klaire A. Lockheart turns the male gaze on its head in her series, “Brodalisques.” Recreating the classical poses and passivity of historic odalisques, she places masculine men at the centerpiece of her oil paintings, using humor to inspire viewers to consider the implications of the heteronormative male gaze. “Flipping the binary doesn’t solve all the problems of the objectification of women in art, but it does provide an entertaining place to start,” she muses. “To update the trope of creating a ‘realistic’ painting in a prohibited space, I place my subjects within the hidden mysteries known as the man cave. I render these forbidden environments representationally to persuade the viewers that these compositions are factual and not at all fictitious. If the original odalisque paintings that I reference really truly are about form and aesthetics, not sex and ownership, then my paintings are completely serious and not remotely silly.”

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