Grotesque Drawings Tackle Art World Sex, Pain, and Trends | Monday Insta Illustrator

This article contains adult content.

A photo posted by Martin Skauen (@martymixx) on Oct 7, 2015 at 4:34am PDT

The long, hard scroll through Norwegian painter Martin Skauen's Instagram account is full of one-liners, hastily-scrawled drawings, memes, and grotesque jokes, but it's a unique look at an artist's psyche from the inside. His drawings are peppered with male genitalia, but each phallus is inundated with art world decorum. One features a painfully twisted sculpture of a penis on display in a gallery with an ape viewer hyperventilating at its offensiveness. "Calm down, sir!" a gallery attendant says, offering him a paper bag. "Breathe in this… It's meant to be provocative."

Skauer doesn't sketch visuals like this lightly. "I guess somehow the dick is one of the most difficult things to depict in art because of its banality, it's overused symbolism etc., therefore I think it's a fun challenge to try to make it work without being a total cliché," Skauen tells The Creators Project. Many of his other illustrations touch on the language the art world has developed around sexuality. One features a little green man laying on a bed wearing fishnet tights, wagging his finger and intoning, "Come and alienate me." "Ultimately, I'm trying to find different ways and methods to explain the absurdity of existence and at the same time deconstruct all that seems too logical," he explains. "It's sort of a balance between poetry and commentary."

Check out the sexy, scandalous, and sometimes scary illustrations Skauen puts forth in the Instagrams below.

A photo posted by Martin Skauen (@martymixx) on May 12, 2016 at 7:52am PDT

A photo posted by Martin Skauen (@martymixx) on Apr 5, 2016 at 12:10pm PDT

A photo posted by Martin Skauen (@martymixx) on Oct 26, 2015 at 3:16pm PDT

Selfportrait for Kunstforum magazine 2009 #martinskauen#artistportrait#selfportrait#drawing#art#pencildrawing#working#intimate

A photo posted by Martin Skauen (@martymixx) on Sep 29, 2015 at 3:44pm PDT

A photo posted by Martin Skauen (@martymixx) on Jun 28, 2016 at 9:10am PDT

A photo posted by Martin Skauen (@martymixx) on Jul 15, 2016 at 11:18am PDT

A photo posted by Martin Skauen (@martymixx) on Sep 2, 2015 at 1:02pm PDT

See more of Martin Skauer's work on his Instagram page. Check out The Creators Project on Instagram to find your new favorite artist.

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