Lawrence.com

Anna Glynn's Barbie and Ken photographs are not for little girls.

The black-and-white images, part of the upcoming "Sexually Charged" exhibit at Carmesi, 1012 Mass., show the plastic dolls posed in various stages of sexual acts.

"They are the Barbie dolls I had as a kid," Glynn said, explaining how she came to make the photos five years ago. "(One afternoon) I had one roll of film and I didn't know what to photograph. Then I found my Barbies, and I thought this would be funny."

The photographs, depending on the attitudes of the viewer, elicit hysterical laughter or raised eyebrows.

Glynn, who has a bachelor's degree in photography from Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, said she knew when she was creating the photographs, collectively titled "The Barbie Pornos," that people would read things into them that she didn't intend.

"Barbies have perfect bodies and smiles and are so innocent, and the photos show the opposite," she said.

Laurie Culling, who is coordinating the Carmesi exhibit, said Glynn is not the only artist using Barbie dolls in her works. The show also includes "wrapped mummy Barbie dolls" by Marion Dyer.

But the main push of the show is to look at "sacred sexuality," which is seeing sexuality as a way to "connect to a frequency of ecstasy that connects back to the divine source and information," Culling explained.

Culling started thinking about coordinating the exhibit about two years ago after talking with an art teacher whose students were asking her about the use of nudity and sexual elements in artworks.

"We have such residual weird attitudes about sex that it got me to thinking," she said.

That paired with a recent introduction to "Bringers of the Dawn," a book by Barbara Marciniak, led Culling into narrowing the focus of the show to the "liberating nature of sensuality and sexuality."

"Sexual repression has been a major tool of control in our society, and people are beginning to discover this and get in control of their own power," she said. "There's been years of misuse and misappropriation of sexuality."

Nancy Ness, owner of Carmesi, agreed to display the show at her gallery if she could be the juror.

"The tendency with most commercial galleries is for (this subject) to be overlooked. They display landscapes and still life," Ness said. "This is about people and the emotion they have invested in their art. The human body is a beautiful shape, especially when it comes to expressing human emotion."

"This is not a sleazy show or about the dark side of sexuality," Culling said.

About 40 artists from Kansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Washington will display their works. Other Lawrence artists include Judi Kellas, Diana Dunkley, Hobart and Shakura Jackson, John Haller, Tanya McNeely, Kristin Dempsey, Robert Hickerson, Rachel Freeman and Michael Braa.