Buoj iz Jeb, Professional Figure Model
“Buoj iz Jeb” is a character that I developed early on in my performance career, as an undergraduate student at Cornish College of the Arts. He stemmed out of a discomfort with the male gaze, and the expression of male sexuality onstage, specifically in response to a music performance by Lee Scratch Perry that I had witnessed as a teenager. In graduate school, with new training in buffoon and sculptural performance under my wing, I revisited the character and designed a naked body suit for him. The performance started with a simple premise of figure drawing sessions. I would arrive at an unannounced location as the character, carrying an easel and suitcase full of props. I would set the easel up, undress myself, and invite a participating audience to adorn me with costumes and props and draw me. Over the period of several years, I accumulated over 200 figure drawings of the character, created by people of all ages and ethnicities from a variety of locations including Minneapolis, Chicago, Brooklyn NY, and Detroit. The collection of drawings would be exhibited alongside each performance, conveying a deconstruction of gender and a conversation about the white male and experience of drawing a white female in a naked man’s costume under the public gaze. In addition to the figure drawing series, I also developed a yearly performance titled “Buoj iz Jeb Summer Swimsuit Edition,” in which Buoj would reveal the newest swimsuits for the season by wearing them all at once and then through an interactive and hilariously uncomfortable performance peel them off one at a time until only his “birthday suit” remained.
Dumbo Arts Festival, Brooklyn, NY, September 2013
Dixon Place, New York City, NY, May 2013.
REwork Exhibition, Minneapolis, MN, November 2012
Chicago Women’s Funny Festival, Chicago IL, August 2012
“Meanwhile White’s unignorably charming character made the intimidating acts of life drawing and social interaction with a (fake naked) stranger feel intimate.”
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