Artist Statement
My time spent as a Bud and Betty Micheels Student-Artist-in-Residence allowed me to deepen my research practices, freely explore materials, and define a body of work.
My work takes inspiration from Julia Kristeva’s essays, The Powers of Horror. My imagery is contextualized by the contemporary mechanical age, which facilitates abjection. I am investigating an experience that I describe as loss of control of the mind and body, which becomes an abject freedom. This also guides me to explore variations of consciousness and identity within the sensual mind and body and the voyeuristic I can’t look away feeling of witnessing these abject moments.
As an image maker, I work with traditional oil painting, oil pastel, and a process of mural making where I paint tape and collage it on the wall in little pieces to form my imagery on a larger scale with a quicker resolve. The figures in the tape murals are removed from the context of their environments, which allows the viewer to interact directly with the figure on the white wall. Through this residency, I also explored taking visual elements of my paintings out of the picture plane and allowing them to exist spatially as sculpture. For this exhibition, I created a figural sculpture out of tape where the gesture mimics a body being thrown forward. The pose is placed out of context and is suspended by wire chain, allowing the viewer to interact with it in the round. I am grateful for this experience and getting to create an exhibition that marks the end of the wonderful little journey that this residency has been. Thank you to my mentors, Rose Schemmer and Tim Tozer for all your help and support. And thank you to my residency partner Eli Koltanowski for putting Overcrowded & Discombobulated together with me.
Ainsley Violet