ABOUT THE WORK

Mark-making is a process artists often use to create a variety of patterns, lines, and designs. In the photographic series Libidinal Mark-Marking, friends and lovers use their mouths, tongues, and teeth as instruments for marking skin by rupturing blood vessels and creating hematomas conventionally called hickeys. Hickeys not only register what remains after the vigorous suction of skin: they also provide evidence and traces of hedonistic sexual encounters. In this series, Ibarra archives how our libidinal energies are often congruent with the visceral urge to consume those we sexually desire.

I would like to thank Johnny Galvan and Scout Hanford for studio assistance, as well as all the friends and family who participated in this series.