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My past work, ranging from 1999 to 2005, has been a journey in the search for answers, a way in, a way out, a fighting and then finally a possible negotiation of sorts.
I first found myself observing, critiquing and rebelling: using the medium of photography to question societal and personal restrictions placed upon me (and also by me, onto myself) as a woman. I looked to and studied feminist artists of the 1970s and found making images about my personal search to be a way to feel my way around my own body and instituted structures within society.
Examples of this work can be found in my Photographic Series work, in which I made images based on formalities attributed to femininity, that I then fought against in a visual manner. The Fried Chicken Series depicts a woman in a prissy lace dress carelessly and sloppily eating fried chicken off the bone. My F*#k Me Red Lipstick Series shows a woman eating red lipstick with a look of frustration and disgust. Both of these series hold a rebellious, slightly punk rock attitude towards confinements of femininity in a western society. A much more hopeful point of view is intended in the Erin as Superman Series, where a grown woman playfully dressed up in homemade superhero clothing jumps on the bed in her room.
In my graduate study, my exploration of femininity and sexuality was able to go to a new level conceptually. It was then that I recognized that the center of my conceptual basis was power and control. It was also then that I found myself in a place that questioned my own ability to make changes within a space I considered constricting (female in a patriarchal society). I looked at relationships of power including institutions such as religion, individual and personal relationships and conversations. My reaction to these observations became the artwork I created.
I also began to work in mediums other than photography. I found myself captivated by the power of both sound and movement in the use of video as a medium. My past photographic (sequential) series also leant itself to experimenting in video. Sculpture was another avenue I explored. The relation of an object next to a body (the viewer) is something I became attracted to- I became aware of my own body in a different way in the face of a sculpture. I also continue to utilize photography in my work, for I find that different mediums have their own ways of speaking and I like to have these various “languages” at my capacity.
Uni is a video piece in which a girl tries to take flight from a trampoline in a country landscape. Her movements appear arduous as she moves to defy gravity. One is left to wonder how much control this girl actually has over her own body, as she makes efforts to do what a human body is unable to do physically. On a different level, the creation and making of Uni references my interest in issues of power in that I, the artist, takes control of a body (digitally) and manipulates the movements of that digital body in the process of editing.
The human body, its abilities and beauty as well as its limitations, is something I have always found fascinating. I grew up taking dance classes and as a teenager was in a modern dance company.
The sculpture piece, Untitled (Furniture), is a piece directly related to my thoughts on the human body. Furniture directly references the human body. To make a piece of furniture with obvious furniture attributes that could not easily fit a human body, especially adult, was not only humorous to me but also spoke to the abilities and lack of abilities of this elaborate machine we exist in. I noticed that the piece made me much more aware of my own body, unlike functional furniture which is often taken for granted.
With my graduate work, I began to use more symbolism. It had become difficult to speak about what interested me, especially at the theoretical level I was working at, without the use of symbols. This left me in a place where I had to rely on the use of well known symbols, the willingness of viewers to learn the references to these chosen symbols or to allow the mood or feeling to convey at least an essence of my intentions. I like to work in way that is not entirely spelled out for the viewer. I wish to leave room for the audience to draw their own conclusions.
Maria’s Blue is a sculpture, video and installation piece where I pushed not only the movement of the avatar digital body and sound- but also where I spoke symbolically about femininity and sexuality within the confines of the institution, including religion. The heavily edited and torn apart sound of this video piece is my favorite song from church as a child: the Christian song “Ave Maria.” The blue light under the bed sculpture is intended to symbolize The Virgin Mary and the two figures standing over the bed are the mother/daughter figures that are able to at least partially break or continue tradition. The melting unicorn head on the bed is a destruction of the icon upon which all is referenced. The icon is the male European male in which all are compared against in a western patriarchal society. I chose the unicorn to symbolize the icon because the unicorn has a history in Western mythology for never being seen to reproduce; it is one and original. Crown is a sculpture piece that directly references the institution and the overwhelming power of societal structures. It is larger than life in its intricacy, its praise, its glory and its power.
Maria's Blue and Crown reference my own personal realization that anything that my little individual mind could come up with in critique of our patriarchal existence only led me back to the same place: eventually facing the existential question of truth and higher power.
I wrote these words in reference to Maria’s Blue and Crown:
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And then everything was different yet the same. There was
still only one unicorn to represent all unicorns. There were
still many crowns to be put on many bowed heads; that would
then slowly and carefully lift upright to carry the weight of the
crown with both stern and weak necks.
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And where am I now? Still spinning?
Not really. It isn’t that the same subject matter doesn’t interest me anymore or that I have found some answer to my questions; I am simply in a different place now. I am still observant of the plays of power amongst people and still captivated with the body and its many mysterious possibilities. I am in a place that sees many shades of beauty and disgustingness in people, a place where I am beginning to look at human beings and human relations in a different way. I believe that my photographic portraits have something in them that holds what I am looking to make next. There is a vulnerability, mystery and openness in many of them that I attribute to human-ness somehow. I am looking for more of that.
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