His search for an alienating “surreal” reality provides a new perspective to our normal and often predictable everyday life. Specifically when it comes down to how we experience the naked body, how we look at genitals ( or how we avoid them in non-porn imagery ) and sex.
Manuel Laval normalizes things we normally consider obscene, or at least label “pornographic” and places them in a normal, recognizable scenery. He also connects nonsexual activities with sexual ones, or vise versa. Like in the image where a woman sucks on her thumb while her face is resting on a man’s penis.
Sometimes these connections are serious, triggering your brain to think, relate and to associate. Often they are bizarre and almost hilarious, but always providing that “sexual thinking game” so typical for this artist.
An other part of Laval’s oeuvre are his surreal nudes, woman or males in a dark colorful setting, wearing masks or skulls. Intriguing art , displaying death, life and sex in this strange surreal world only Laval is capable of creating.
