MISC /// Meera Sethi Creative /// ART /// An Ideal Boy

L to R:
2012. Takes Part in Social Activities (An Ideal Boy series). Gouache and ink on canvas. 14 in. x 16 in.
2012. Uses Protection (An Ideal Boy series). Gouache and ink on canvas. 14 in. x 16 in.
2012. Finds Good Lover (An Ideal Boy series). Gouache and ink on canvas. 14 in. x 16 in.. Print, 11 in x 17 in.

2010. An Ideal Boy - Good Habits. Print, 11 in x 17 in. /// BUY

An Ideal Boy - Good Habits is an ironic take on an educational chart used throughout India. The original chart was part of a popular series of instructional illustrations for children that served as a guide to ‘correct’ social behaviour.

My take on the chart was initially produced as a poster and later as individual paintings. This revision uses irony to draw attention to the normative heterosexual agenda of the original and playfully suggests a re-education: one can be gay and be “An Ideal Boy” at the same time. Borrowing the hand-painted, mis-registered aesthetic quality of the original version, my posters and paintings are a double-take that suggest the unexpected.