Mitchell’s A-Z of Fetish Artists - Fury

Our journey through the letter ‘F’ has unearthed a rich vein of artistic talent and today’s final contender is no different. Ed Fury (aka Marc Ming Chan) shows real men not boys. This is probably his best known picture, showing a biker undressing in front of a cop. It's not clear if this is in response to an order or a challenging act of seduction. The cop is actually a photograph and Fury uses this mixed media technique in other images too.

His men are of muscular build but with a realistic padding of fat and generous patches of body hair.

Their head hair is usually cropped very short or shaved completely.

It's nice to see older men being appreciated!

This simpler cross-hatched style (reminiscent of Roger Payne) is very stylish

 - although perhaps a little too severe for drooling over.

In portraits he projects a sense of male animal strength which makes them very arresting. Some of his pictures are eye-catching for a different reason. He uses a technique that presents the image as though it were a hyper-realistic black and white photograph. Obviously this is a highly accomplished artist. 

Soldiers feature prominently in his output which is a refreshing change and in the action pictures they are shown dominating other men and seeming to make them undress. Like the cop in the top picture, though there is an element of ambiguity in it. This might be a prisoner attempting to seduce his captor or reluctantly responding to an instruction. We can't rule out gaydar at work either, flushing out their mutual interest in each other.

Again in this picture it looks as if the soldier, the dominator, and the entire background, is a photo, but it's hard to be sure. There's an interesting bit of control psychology in drawing a naked man and then parachuting him into real world situation with edgy implications. 

There doesn't seem to be much ambiguity here although one might concoct an accidental encounter between a nudist and a soldier who has wandered into the bushes for a comfort break. Yes I know, pull the other leg it's got bells on!

It looks like an unfinished sketch but that doesn't seem entirely inappropriate for a fleeting, strictly unofficial incident like this which isn't going to be reported back at base.

Perhaps the bushes analogy is not so outlandish!

Fury is a British artist but seemingly resident in France and so uses French soldiers as his models. They seem to have a stereotypical element of French chic in the neat cut of their 'uniformes', dainty beret and (in the earlier picture) cool shades. But there's a leanness of look that suggests they might be hard men. That combination makes a significant contribution to the erotic atmosphere of the image. A French viewer will see nuances and historical associations in this presence that an outsider cannot. 

These soldiers have tied up their captive and are delving into his clothes. The perpetrator looks at us guiltily as if caught in the act and uncertain whether to carry on. However, it looks as if his colleague is far from finished as he continues to immobilise their subject. That may not strictly be required, since the captive himself looks as though he is lying back and enjoying the attention (or perhaps he's simply thinking of England). 

It looks as if Fury might have been intending to clad the main character in shorts at one point.

I would certainly have enjoyed that, see below!

More French chic? 

I wonder what he's got hidden away.

In this image Fury explores the art of bondage with rather more subtlety. We see the rope man surveying his helpless subject with interest - or perhaps it's more accurate to say he's studying his subject's response to being tied up. He's gripping his arm tightly so he won't get away. The face of the bound man expresses uncertainty, which is inevitable in this situation. It may be his first time submitting like this and perhaps it's with a stranger, an unknown quantity. But once again there is that element of ambiguity.

Paradoxically, there is no doubt that this is a free choice 

although the threatening leather belt seems to suggest the exact opposite.

All these pictures are notable for their economy of composition, concentrating on uncomplicated but powerful, well-balanced images. There is sufficient detail of clothing etc to create a context but they stop short of becoming a full blown ‘story picture’ of a particular scene and place. In other words this is thoughtful art as well as stimulating eroticism.

Cladding his favourite fantasy man in a hyper-realistic soldier's uniform 

produces an image that is both memorable and extraordinarily sexy.

~

I have been unable to find an operational website for marc ming chan 

but there is an interview on You Tube (2011)