Human Condition August 29 - September 27, 2008
Opening Reception Friday August 29th 7 PM- 10 PM
News media and popular culture bombard us daily with vivid images of sex, violence, disasters, and war. I can watch from the safety of the couch as others inflict and suffer physical harm on the screen, scavenge for food, or save a drowning dog. I may not even cringe or look away any more. As more and more of my experiences become reassigned to a matrix of pixels and data in the virtual world, the body’s integrity and the nature of perception is being reconsidered. Yet, I can’t step out of my skin and walk away, leaving the visceral form behind. I’m feeling conflicted: The model that our culture offers for dealing with the body is a choice between fetishizing and sanitizing.
I believe, in our image-based culture the supremacy of the eye can still be challenged by the physical experience, therefore I make objects.
At the same time, I am intrigued by images of a particular kind: diagrams, maps, medical illustrations, and the pixel matrixes of digital photographs. I’m interested in the descriptive nature of these, distilling visceral experiences and empirical findings into easily digestible quantities of data. By appropriating and remaking them as objects, I also reconsider their meaning and the way they embody information about the reality of physical existence.
As a visual artist working with mixed media my work frequently references the structures and experiences of the body. My former medical training gave me analytical tools that serve my continuing interest in considering the human body both as an object of taboo or spectacle and, most importantly, as the house and hardware of our existence. For me, the process of making and the purpose of the work becomes a balancing act between scientific objectivity and a subjective, visceral experience.
As an object maker, my understanding of the world is based on my sense of touch. In my art making, labor, time, and the physical process of engaging with the material bit by bit, square inch by square inch are essential factors. The everyday materials I use, like synthetic felt and thread, are transformed into tactile, sensual objects as a result of a repetitive and meticulous process of sewing and cutting. Each project is a new challenge: a struggle to accept or defy my own physical limitations of visual acuity, motor coordination, patience and endurance. The object made this way is a result of a process of transcription: turning the flat and remote image into a tangible and fragile object of our everyday reality.
