JUROR'S BIOS

Select on a Juror

Luis De La Cruz (USA / Mexico)
Director and Chief Curator for the XART Foundation

Luis De La Cruz is the Director and Chief Curator for The XART Foundation. The XART Foundation is a PUBLIC BENEFIT non-profit 501(c) 3 organization formed strictly for charitable and educational purposes. The XART Foundation developed from the success of the Annual Sensual & Erotic Art Exhibition now in its seventeenth year founded by Luis & Theresa De La Cruz. This exhibition, of the most significant developments in Erotic Art, reigns as the longest running continuous survey in America.

Luis De La Cruz has been an arts administrator and new media curator, developing, directing and producing multi-media art exhibitions and projects with private and non-profit institutions. He has over thirty years of professional experience in the art world as an administrator and has provided curatorial services in over sixty exhibitions. His professional work experience also includes serving as Technical Director and providing curatorial services for the Newport Harbor Museum, Newport Beach, CA (now named the Orange County Art Museum.) He also served as guest curator for numerous art institutes such as, The Los Angeles Art Association and The Bilingual Foundation for the Arts. He recently completed his role as the Project Director for the Walt Disney Concert Hall and curator of the art program for collections and exhibitions for The Music Center of Los Angeles County.

Mr. De La Cruz is a founder and director of The Annual Sensual & Erotic Art Exhibition and has developed a theme that presents a unique American perspective on the subject matter of censorship and contemporary art. The idea for this exhibition emerged out of the need to provide a free forum for artists and to expand the general public’s opportunity to view erotic art in its many forms. His intention in assembling these works is to make more widely known the achievements of contemporary artists, whose neglect can in part be attributed to their gender, culture or medium and to educate those attending the exhibition as to why and how erotic artists have been marginalized in the twentieth century. He opened The XART Gallery in September of 2002.

www.xartgallery.com



back to top

---

Les Barany (Switzerland)
Designer, Curator, Archivist and Agent

Bio Coming Soon http://www.hrgiger.com/leslie.htm























back to top

---

Bettina Weiner (Germany)
Curator for Inasaja – Galeria Ars Erotica

Born in 1968, Bettina Weiner’s education was not in the direct spirit of the sexual revolution but she grew up with nudism as if it was the most natural thing in the world, without strict moral or religious rules.

Several years ago, she came in contact with contemporary erotic art. As marketing consultant she worked with a small gallery in Dresden/ Germany. This bizarre cellar-gallery specialized in erotic art giving artists a rare opportunity to exhibit erotic artworks – uncensored. She buried herself in the concept and it continues to captivate her, a feeling she hopes that will last for a long time. Because of the obviously successful worldwide trade in historic erotic artworks, “I wondered why are people so quick to associate the contemporary erotic art with pornography and discriminate against the artists so often” says Bettina. “In contrast to the deceased artists this strikes at the creative centre of the living artists and it hurts” she continues. Bettina believes that many fascinating artworks from today’s contemporary erotic artists are really crying out to come into the public arena and to show that the theme of eroticism and sexuality in art is as just as valid today as it has been for the past thousands of years; a realization she hopes to witness sooner than later.

Together with her sister she founded INASAJA® Gallery for erotic art. For nearly 3 years they have been searching contemporary erotic artworks of different genres to present on their internet-gallery for viewing and purchase. They consider their venture as a basis to present this art genre to interested people worldwide, to find supporters, and to create a platform where their artistic erotic spirit of the age will be at home. At the same time, the two sisters are working with partners to build an international exhibition-program with the goal of developing the direct connection to be existent between the erotic art enthusiasts, the artworks and their artists.

www.inasaja.com



back to top

---

Hans van der Kamp (Holland)
Photographer, Online Curator

As a photographer, Hans van der Kamp (1955) has always struggled with labels as erotic art and portraiture. In his vision a nude was also a portrait. His motto: “If a nose tells us something about the person portrayed, why should any other body part be less informative?”

It was a motto that was not very popular in the 1970s when Van der Kamp started to exhibit and published his photographs. At that time most artists were quite busy stretching sexual and moral conventions. Looking at their works Van der Kamp soon learned that his old motto was irreversible. A picture of a body without a face tells us very little about the personality of the person depicted but often very much about the artist.

As much as he admired those works, because he understood the needs of other photographers to create reflections of themselves rather than the people they photographed, Van der Kamp remained a very traditional photographer, persistent in his goal to understand the personality of the people he photographed by reading the expressions and forms of their faces and bodies.

These thoughts on photography brought him closer to classic art and when he founded AMEA // World Museum of Erotic Art in 1996 it seemed a logical step to put emphasis on historical art. Over the years, however the site became more interactive and artists of all disciplines, using all possible techniques, joined the site and his fascination with contemporary erotic art grew and became a permanent part of his life, while at the same time he started to struggle with labels once again.

In the first year, many visitors of the site e-mailed him saying that the erotic art exhibited on AMEA was pornographic. So, Van der Kamp promptly answered with his first disclaimer on the front page:

Although much of the material presented here is considered to be pornography in many countries, it is the strong conviction of the founders that looking at imagery concerning the act of love will do no damage to your health. ~

His response to those who kept on debating issues as the difference between erotic art and pornography was always very concise. “As a rule good pornography is put to better use than mediocre fine art.”

Adolf Loos wrote an essay in 1908 stating that all good art is erotic. Van der Kamp strongly believes that art stimulating our libido cannot do so without equally stimulating our minds and following that train of thought the division between art and pornography seems obligatory to him. What counts in making distinctions in art is always the quality of the works -- nothing more and nothing less.

http://www.ameanet.org/

back to top

---

China Hamilton (England)
Photographer

China Hamilton, has established a considerable reputation as photographer of fine art erotic images of women. He is married and has four children. He was born in Norbury, south London, England in 1946. and attended Croydon Technical School before spending four years at Croydon College of Art and Design. Here he specialised in life drawing under the renowned Fred Janes. He also studied fine art, graphic design, printing and photography.

He first started making his own sunlight prints and processing his own film at age eleven and at age thirteen started painting and drawing seriously. Paintings of wild landscapes and drawing the female nude have always run along side his photographic work.

After leaving college he worked in the world of museum and exhibition design then he established with a partner, London’s first specialist macro photography business, specialising in the photography of fine art. He is something of a polymath, also having a passion for precision engineering, traditional music, natural medicine and steam engines. He is also well known for his erotic short stories many of which have been published.

He has been seen as one of the leading fine art photographic printers of the twentieth century. His most distinctive style involves exploiting the classic mood and darkness of monochrome. He strove to produce photographs that were each unique pieces of creative work. In this quest he mastered and improved many historic, Victorian processes and has contributed to photographic science a number of new printing processes all of which have been published in the photographic press. He was sponsored by Kodak and featured in their Professional Journal. His photographs have been and continue to be published by journals and magazines worldwide. His work has often examined the darker side of female sexuality along side his more traditional erotic pictures. In 1996 he was awarded the global title of Erotic Photographer of the Year. For health reasons, relating to his darkroom work, he now works digitally.

He has enjoyed a number of one-man exhibitions and contributed pictures to many collective exhibitions in Britain and Europe. His work is in many private collections around the world and has appeared in numerous book compilations. To date he has had published five book collections of his photographs in a number of countries; the latest, 2007, with Edition Reuss, Germany.

http://www.chinahamilton.com/

back to top

---

Garry Milius (USA)
Curator

Over the past sixty years The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction has established one of the world’s largest collections of art, objects and printed materials focused on human sexual behavior.


Garry Milius, with a background in studio art, joined the institute as Assistant Curator of Art, Artifacts and Photography in 2003. His exhibits for the institute have included: Out of Russia – a look at erotic works by Russian émigrés Marc Chagall, Pavel Tchelitchew, and Andrey Avinoff; Passionate Creatures - an examination of the prevalence of animals and mythical creatures in erotic art; and Kinsey Confidential - an exhibit focusing on frequently asked questions about sex answered and illustrated.

In 2006 he began The Kinsey Institute’s annual juried art show to both encourage artists to document their thoughts and feelings on sexuality and to introduce to the public the types of sex themed works being created by contemporary artists.

back to top

---

Steve Diet Goedde(USA)
Photographer

Steve Diet Goedde has been a fine art fetish photographer for nearly 18 years. He is known for his subtle approach to photographing the high-gloss fetish world in a very non-gloss, down-to-earth style. His attention to composition and black and white tonal quality has given him the title of the Ansel Adams of fetish. Steve established his photographic style in the early 1990s in Chicago where he photographed the contents of his first book "The Beauty of Fetish" (Edition Stemmle) which was released in 1998. That same year, Steve relocated to Los Angeles where he continued to define his evolving style. This west coast work was later compiled in his second Edition Stemmle book "The Beauty of Fetish: Volume II" in 2001. In 2006, Slish Pix released a DVD compilation of his work entitled "Living Through Steve Diet Goedde". Steve is currently working on a follow-up DVD and a book of new work to be released next year.

www.stevedietgoedde.com



back to top

---

Pet Silvia (USA)
Museum Owner, Artist

Working as an artist & model for himself for over 30 years, Pet Silvia has adopted the attitude, "I just do this because it feels good."

From posing in various states of undress, to the execution of the work in a wide range of media, the quest to be the pretty girl in the picture is the foundation of Silvia's work. Whether the framework is a hand-made diorama, a collage transfer painting, or a digital image, (he) creates a self-contained utopia where the exploration of art and sexuality are one and the same. There are no boundaries or separation.

The Musee National d’Art Moderne in Paris, The Rhode Island School of Design, and the MOMA Library in New York City, all have Silvia’s work in their collections, contained in his numerous appearances in the I.S.C.A. Quarterly, which they subscribe to et al. Silvia has done commissioned work for Sony Entertainment, has appeared on national TV, exhibited across the US and Europe, and still does an occasional performance piece.

Recent exhibitions include, Can't Pet This - Art @ Large, Museum of Queer Visual Culture, CUNY Graduate Center/Leslie-Lohman Foundation, both in New York City, Seattle Erotic Art Festival, Consolidated Works, Seattle WA.

Silvia did a weekly cable TV show, the Malignant Muse, on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network for three years. It focused on unknown guest artists, while poking fun at those who are known. He also worked as curator for the Sacred Body Art Gallery on Canal Street in New York City, promoting the Extreme Artwork of underground New York.

Pet is co-owner of the gallery, Art at Large in New York, has been both artist and curator with exhibitions that celebrate the human body and sexuality. Starting out in the 1980’s with several co-op galleries, and art events that he produced, he came into the forefront of the underground – literally! From the basement of the Sacred Body Arts Tattoo Emporium on Canal Street, he branched out into other underground galleries, venues and clubs throughout the 1990’s. Between 1996 and 1999, Pet did his weekly cable TV show in Manhattan, The Malignant Muse. Costumed in drag, wearing lingerie, he promoted the work of unknown artists, and poked fun at the art world establishment because, "they deserve it."

With his wife, Tammey Stubbs, they opened Art at Large in January of 2002 in Hell's Kitchen on Ninth Avenue, to promote and sell the work of artists they feel are a significant contribution to life and longing in the 21st century. Represented artists include: H.R. Giger, Annie Sprinkle, Barbara Nitke, Carolyn Weltman, Frances Turner, Charles Gatewood, Spider Webb, Tom of Finland, and photographs from the Quentin Crisp Archives.

Silvia was instrumental, through his association with the Tom of Finland Foundation, in starting the annual New York Erotic Art Fair Weekend, held every May at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, since 2001. In April 2005, Pet was invited to be the Guest Curator for the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, bringing in over 30 artists, and helping to make that event it's biggest success in art sales to date. He has done the same for Seattle in 2006, and 2007.

Having expanded the gallery’s vision to accommodate the various genres that have cropped up in recent years, Silvia has also begun his new lecture series based on his forthcoming book, The Artists Life. That, in tandem with his private portfolio critiques as an artist consultant. Having worked on both sides of the coin with over 250 exhibitions as either an artist or as a curator, all of his involvement's have helped make him a trailblazing advocate for what he calls, "Art That Excites!" He does this with an equal understanding and passion for those who make the art, and those who hang it on their walls.

back to top

---

Damien B. (USA / France)
Art Gallery Director

Damien B. is the founder, president, and director of one of Miami’s most prominent art gallery: Damien B. Contemporary Art Center. The gallery was founded in 2000 as one of the pioneering establishments in Miami Wynwood Art District .

Damien has been predisposed to a symbiosis of two opposite worlds: Science and Art, a gratitude owed to an UNESCO artist father and an engineer mother. This combination drove him to acquire a strong background in science graduating in Geology, Biology and Mathematics, as well as in the Art field studying Art history in Nice (France).

From an early age, he emerged in the art world with artists, intellectuals and poets surrounding him and his family. He found in Miami a very exciting opportunity to bring in this blooming city all his passion for the Arts and the artists. He founded a non-for profit organization for the promotion of young talented emerging artists and bring in Miami establishes European and American talents. He also promotes them all nationally by participating in Art Fairs. He has earned his mark amongst the most important figures in the Miami art scene as a prominent gallery owner and a curator attributed to numerous audacious, challenging and avant-garde exhibitions.

www.damienb.com



back to top

---

Timothy Dolph (USA)
Photographer

Welcome to the photography world of Timothy Dolph. A world filled with images of Fetish models, hotrods, monsters, and vintage pin-ups. Breaking into the photography art scene in early 2000, Tim hit the fetish scene full speed and hasn’t looked back since. Before then, he had always wanted to learn photography, but just never really got around to it. Soon after he got his first manual film camera off eBay, he read anything and everything he could get his hands on to learn the tricks of the trade. “I must have filled up an entire dumpster with prints and negatives”, says Tim, “and apart from taking a beginning black and white photo course at the local university, I’m pretty much self-taught.”

Tim is a native of New Orleans who has earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering. He thinks that his acquired artistic sense could be attributed as a direct by-product of his father’s genes. He feels that his talent for photography is simply a natural phenomenon. He assimilates the way physics and art combine to create a great photograph. Tim has always been a fan of the vintage pin-up artists like George Petty and Gil Elvgren. The silly sexy side of his work includes a threesome of sexy pinups cheating at strip poker, an Audrey Hepburn look-a-like model giving an upskirt shot while having breakfast outside of Tiffany & Co., and a trouble maker fetish ballerina in “My Mom Made Me Take This Class.” The softer side of Tim’s photography is a still of a woman quickly adjusting her lingerie in an elevator just before the door opens, a latex clad model in a cat suit stretching out on a chaise lounge, and a sexy long legged model with her thong caught in her stiletto heel. His photographic style uses irony, humor, innocence and seduction. It’s just cool, funny, sexy art.

My motto is quite simple: “I shoot what I love”, expresses Tim Dolph. Whether Fetish, Hotrods, Monsters, and Vintage pin-ups, he shoots the simple, complex and extraordinary out of them all. He sums it up: “I’m one who loves the anticipation and the excitement of the journey rather than just the final outcome. It is not about what my photos show, it’s more about what they suggest; sorta like a really good striptease.”

www.photosbydolph.com



back to top

---

Leigh Heppell (UK)
Sculptor

Completely untutored and self taught, this extrovert character with a history of achieving the impossible and sending ripples of delight to his many private and business clients, has over the last few years "made waves" in the world of conventional art. Hidden away in a tiny Cornish village, Leigh works avidly to create an unusual collection of three dimensional figures to match his wild imagination. Working from a huge converted barn, and using his own special method of the modern technique of bonded bronze, he is able to individually produce beautiful sculptures that are genuinely hand made and quite unique. "Touch them, feel them, stroke them and breath their beauty" says Leigh who is quick to admit his own love of sensuality and the female form. Certain sculptures within the Heppell Collection are cast as Special Editions, but all his major works are Limited Edition and truly collectable. Leigh produces on average one new sculpture every month to add to his range.

The collection includes a small number of "special" sculptures for the more discerning Erotophile, which although sexually explicit in content, are nevertheless still touched with artistic creativity that is the unmistakable trade mark of this incredibly talented artist. Most recently Leigh has perfected a completely new technique, using real material in the casting process, giving the finished sculpture an even greater feeling of authenticity and erotic feeling.

www.exotic.co.uk



back to top

---

Karynna (US)
Digital Artist

As a professional artist and designer for nearly 30 years, Karynna is a digital pioneer, illustrating often for computer media since 1983. In 1997, when the World Wide Web began taking hold in popular culture, she applied her talents to a thriving business in erotic art through various websites such as her pet, Pornotopia.com.

Noticing that most erotic art is soft and sensual, she has courageously created graphically sexual art worthy of a frame. Observing the dominating male centric themes in erotic art, she consciously focuses on expressions that appeal to feminine and couple’s preferences. In partnership with her husband, Sagemonn, she advances the cause of “explicitly sexual erotic art,” advocating it as a real and valid fine art form for adults to enjoy—not always hanging on a wall, but taking advantage of new technologies that offer friendlier canvases for adult consumption. As a result, men and women, alike, prove to be loyal fans to the Pornotopia Fantasy.

She’s honed her visual, musical and management abilities to a nearly inseparable synthesis with her husband’s artistic efforts. Together, their symphony of talent produces an edgy erotic science fiction and fantasy vision that finds showings in galleries and conventions internationally. Not only in the traditional art forms of 2d art and sculpture, but also as the newest 3d animated art form taking hold of popular interest today. Together, they have been honored with AVN Video Awards in 2006 and 2007 for “Best Alternative Release” and “Best Animated Release” on DVDs that specialize in XXX 2d fine art and 3d animated art.

Pornotopian art has been highlighted in various mainstream publications, from Eurotica’s Sizzle and Penthouse to The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sex on the Net. It has found a worldwide audience with licensed publication in Spain and underground translations in Japanese and Russian. Her contributions have earned the compliment of “Smart Erotic Art for Smart Women” by Wired Magazine; and, she enjoys a global showing in an interview with Playboy TV’s Sexcetera.

However, her playful, allegorical and fantasy themes have frequently been censored by venues holding themselves as authority in erotic art…begging the question: What are the valid limits and criteria of Erotic Art?

Karynna views the depth of human sexual experience as important to life as nourishment. She reasons, if a display of food can find favor as an artistic subject, the full majesty of our sexual intimacy should also. Her avid appreciation for its beauty, spirituality, whimsy, fantasy, progressive ideals and even its darkest parts, including its taboos, make her especially sensitive to the legitimacy these elements of sexuality have for artistic expression and a free voice.

www.Pornotopia.com



back to top

---