Born
in northern Florida in 1976, Keira D. Dooley received
her Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Drawing from the
University of Florida, Gainesville. It was there
Dooley found her passion for the bicycle as an object
of freedom, a tool of spirituality, and a machine
of desire. Bicycles raced into her artwork during
her Master's of Fine Arts studies
in Printmaking at California State University, Long
Beach. Currently, Dooley resides in Long Beach where
she continues to make erotic bicycle art. www.keiradooley.com |
 An
avid cyclist since 1997, I began to create art about one
of my favorite objects: the bicycle. Shifting from an
earlier body of work based on spirituality and Eastern
philosophies, I produced the bicycle installation,
I Love to Ride My Bicycle. Serving as a shrine for
paying homage to a “two-wheeled god,” this piece was a
celebration of the bicycle’s power to elevate the human
body to a transcendental state of awareness. Within the
gallery the viewer could pedal atop the bicycle while
simultaneously triggering a cassette tape that narrated
“first bicycle stories” and “bicycle crash stories” from
random interviews. A batik fiber piece hung directly in
front of the bicycle to serve as a point of meditational
focus, dawning a glorified bicycle adorned with colorful
beads and sequin rims. Many viewers walked away from this
interactive bicycle piece with a sense of nostalgia and
a renewed desire to ride their bicycles. The entire installation
screamed, “Ride me for ultimate bliss!”
On my journey of self-discovery via bicycling and artistic
practice, I began to explore the history of feminism
in relation to bicycles. Upon reading instances of
taboo circumstances concerning feminine arousal and/or
internal damage to the female reproductive system due
to cycling, my thoughts began to conspire, envisioning
a truly arousing bicycle.
With endless ideas flooding into my mind, my pornographic
imagination took hold and steered my work full force
into this new, libertine direction. Being raised within
a patriarchal household, not to mention the surrounding
society, I rebelled against sexism at an early age. Thus,
my impetus for creating this body of work was powerful
and undeniable. I knew that I was a feminist, but I
was not quite sure what that meant.
Feminism had always been a mystery to me and had never
been simply defined throughout my twenty-two years of
education. Do feminists hate men? What are the different
kinds of feminism, and why are they different? Are all
women entitled to be feminists simply due to their biological
makeup? Do men like feminists? A long awaited introduction
to feminism was delivered to me in an exceptional art
history seminar during my final year of graduate school.
The focus of Dr. Karen Kleinfelder’s class, From Cartesian
Dualism to the Cyborg Manifesto: The Mind/Body Problem,
was learning how to think beyond dualisms that have existed
in our society for centuries. Assigned readings, such
as Refiguring Bodies by Elizabeth Grosz, investigated
differences of feminist positions in relation to mind/body
issues. New to feminism, I found it quite difficult to
wade through the academic jargon within Grosz’s text.
More ideas that related to my work, like Cartesian dualism
and the cyborg, were also examined intensively during
my studies in Kleinfelder’s class. Moreover, musings about
“desiring machines” and “bodies without organs” by Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari brought new meaning to my work,
describing human desire as a sort of flowing machine.
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1) However, I was still unclear
as to exactly what feminism was and how it applied to
me.
Through extensive research I finally found an excerpt
by feminist theorist and cultural critic bell hooks [sic],
and it all made sense. “Simply put, feminism is a movement
to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.”
(2) She explains in her book, Feminism is for Everybody,
that most people have received all of their knowledge
about the feminist movement from capitalist patriarchal
mass media. Since the 1970s, mass media has portrayed
women’s liberation by merely focusing “on the freedom
to have abortions, to be lesbians, to challenge rape and
domestic violence.” (hooks, 3) Along with many other women
and men that I have known, I had definitely received this
dose of poisonous feminist backlash from mass media. bell
hooks proceeds to clarify the dualism that resides within
feminism: reformist vs. revolutionary feminists. Reformist
feminists seek to disrupt the existing system and “break
free of male domination in the workforce and be more self-determining
in their lifestyles.” (hooks, 4) Conversely, revolutionary
feminists want to transform the existing system and “bring
an end to patriarchy and sexism.” (hooks, 5) Hesitating
to classify myself within a group of any kind, I propose
that I tend to lean toward the latter camp, as ending
sexism seems to cover all bases of feminist contention.
Armed with knowledge and persistence, I produced and continue
to produce feminist artworks using the bicycle as the
primary symbol for liberation. The intention of my
ongoing project is to “enlighten” society
about desire in a positive and often humorous way.
Poster propaganda was the primary medium of choice in
which dildos attached to bicycle seats began to erect
themselves in my lithographic prints.
Subsequently, I designed hand bound erotic artist books,
echoing literary smut that has been distributed throughout
underground circles for ages. These books share intimate
stories about my fetishistic alter ego and her desire
for bicycles as sexual objects. Additional bicycle perversions
surfaced in my imagination, bringing about the flamboyant
Merry Saddles™ Bedroom Bicycles™
parading in custom lingerie and bicycles that have been
physically transformed to accommodate intimate riding
situations for couples. Theoretically stated, the bicycle
has served as a loaded signifier within my work, oscillating
between transcendentalism, feminism, and gender issues.
Simply put, I love to ride my bicycle(s). —Keira
Dooley
1. See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari,
Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 1972,
preface by Michel Foucault, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark
Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1983), 5.
2. bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate
Politics (Cambridge: South End Press, 2000), 1.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid. |
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