Artist’s Statement.
For my senior show, Embody, I’ve decided to focus on one of my favorite subjects; the figure. Rather than creating images of figures in space, however, these pieces are more about the experience of physicality. Our bodies influence our perception, turning even an action as basic as touching one’s own hand into a personal, subjective experience- something Maurice Merleau-Ponty called the “primacy of perception.” In addition to physical sensation, I’ve used the figure as metaphor to explore emotional sensation and my own anxieties over ideas of surface/depth, strength/fragility.
All of the pieces in this show relate especially to skin, touch, and the idea of the barrier between Us and Other. With these thoughts in mind, I chose to work primarily with watermedia and paper. Both materials have a feeling of impermanence and fragility. In thinking of the paper as a metaphor for skin, I am especially drawn to the way watermedia can penetrate and stain the paper itself.
The idea of ‘serious play’ and the importance of process has led me to look to the work of the Dadaists as well as the Fluxus movement of the 1960’s. While I love the idea of artist as philosopher, and concept as it’s own beautiful art, I’m also still attracted to sculptors and painters like Eva Hesse and Robert Rauschenberg, the physicality of things.
Many thanks to my family for that first box of crayons and continued support. Many many thanks to my thesis adviser Hannah Barnes and the rest of the art department for four years of unending guidance, patience, knowledge, friendship, support, making sure I graduate with all ten fingers and most of my sanity , and (___insert less cheesy way of saying “helping me realize my dream ___)
For more undergraduate work see Here.
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