Ana Segovia: Toy Boy

The images in “Toy Boy” present themselves as analogies. Ana Segovia (Mexico, 1991) likens the process of creating an image to that of creating an identity, where a series of cultural and pictorial signifiers work together to compose a sort of fiction, or representation, of someone or something. Segovia draws form stills of Mexico’s golden age of cinema to question how mass media has influenced notions of identity in a society, particularly those of gender. For Segovia, identity and painting require a communal suspension of disbelieve, like a kid playing with a toy who imbues objects with agency— looking and making are games, childish, at times perverse, and always make believe.