Artist PollyNor and the Male Gaze

Artist PollyNor Talks Art, Her Take on Modern Female Sexuality, and the Male Gaze

London-based illustrator Polly Norton, or PollyNor, as she goes by, considers the modern girl and her life as inspiration for her work. Quirky and frank, her illustrations are a change from the usual fare of objectified women we see every day, everywhere. She says of her art, “I am questioning the ubiquitous male vision (of women),” and offers an “alternative view on sexuality, relationships and emotions from a modern-day female perspective.”

She derives her inspiration for her artwork from “funny texts, angry tweets, memes and selfies” as well as “girl chat.” She graduated from Loughborough University in 2011, and says that her illustrations often begin with a “line of dialogue or image in mind” and then puts her vision to paper, and then digitally colours it. When it comes to the subject of her work, she says, “If you were to write a piece about your feelings on gender issues you would have shit loads of comments calling you out over every detail and people writing insults at you in capital letters YOU ARE SO WRONG U FEMNAZI, I BET YOU ARE FAT, NOBODY WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU - GET OVER IT. People take what they want from an image but words are very concrete.”


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PollyNor's Website