Dicks aren’t known for being aesthetically pleasing (though we’re sure you’re quite fond of your own). They certainly don’t belong on display in an art museum or at a gallery exhibition.
But artist Alexandra Rubinstein just might change all that. The 32-year-old New Yorker is sticking it to the world of fine art. How? By specializing in schlongs. Penis portraiture, if you will.
No, johnsons aren’t the only thing she draws. But they are her trademark, especially on Instagram, where’s she’s amassed an admirable following. She’s even started selling merch like cock-themed koozies, face masks, coasters, and cutting boards.
Her fascination with the male member arose in response to the art world’s obsession with female anatomy.
“I decided to use penises to symbolize men, and explore the complexities of masculinity,” she told Mel magazine. She believes the male member to be “the origin of a lot of [men’s] vulnerabilities and insecurities around the male experience.”
But if you scroll through her feed hoping to find porn-worthy erections, you’ll be disappointed. Many of the pricks featured in her work are flaccid. “I really wanted to avoid [the paintings] coming across too celebratory,” she told Mel magazine. “My work isn’t about, ‘Men are beautiful, too!’ — that’s not where I’m going with it. As a woman, I wanted to disarm the penis and take the power away from it.”
Russian born and raised, Rubinstein studied painting, drawing, and photography at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating, she moved to New York, and had her first solo show, Dick Diaries. Dongs aren’t the only focus of her artwork, though. She’s currently doing some very funny things with the Bernie Sanders Inauguration Day mittens meme. Celebrities and cunnilingus also factor heavily into her creativity; her series A Dream Come True depicts everyone from Jesus to Barack Obama to Bill Murray going down on a woman from the female perspective.
There is a downside to working with wieners as often as she does, however; men feel the liberty to send her dick pics or ask to have their wangs represented in her art. (Good luck with that, assholes.) “People often make assumptions that, if I paint a guy or paint a dick, I love men, I love dick,” she told Mel magazine. “That’s not what the work is about, and it’s simplifying me to that.”
In celebration of the insanely realistic work of Alexandra Rubinstein, we’ve gathered together a few of our favorites from her Instagram oeuvre.
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