My work focuses on the sensate body as an object that collects,
processes and stores information. Specifically, I am interested
in how cognitive and visceral experiences shape our sense of self
and how that self is reflected in artistic pursuits. Art can be
difficult to define, but regardless of how it is interpreted,
art has healing potential. Defined as a state of being, art can
attempt to fill tensions that exist between man and nature, the
self and the other, as well as man and himself.
On an individual level, the human body is divided from other bodies,
from its environment, and often, it is divided between the knowledge
and experience of itself and its unconscious mind. These are three
of the most basic struggles that humans have to contend with,
but these tensions are experienced because of the separation that
is initially created by the physical surface of objects. Skin,
in this sense, becomes very important to my work, because it is
the single division between the external world and our internal
selves. It is the surface on which the world and the body collide
inscribing intimate details of histories, fears, and desires.
Materials are one of the primary ways that I try to communicate
when I make work. Many of the artist that I relate to have a strong
affinity for materials, but Eva Hesse, in particular, used materials
in such a way that was less about the cultural connotations that
are often present in contemporary works. Instead her work focused
more, although not entirely, on the sensuality of the material
alone. While this minimalist interest in how the body reacts to
material seems to be a rather simple intention at first, this
interaction between bodies and objects, bodies and spaces, or
people are the basis of how an identity is constructed.
In a piece of my own titled, "Prototypical Mass, " I
use many of the same strategies and languages and have similar
interests to those of Hesse. The piece was made by repeatedly
sewing pieces of muslin cloth into a tapestry of honeycombed shapes.
These were then coated with polyurethane and used to line a corridor.
In this piece, my interest in materials is primarily sensual.
An immediate response is created by the combined effects of its
size, texture, weight, and gesture. Hess would use materials that
could be easily manipulated or coupled to complicate their expressive
and physical properties in this same way. She would use string,
rope, or cloth, and then coat them with a latex or resin, which
would result in an object that rested uncomfortably between a
state of elegance and ugliness. Visually, my work feels similar
to this. The restricted movement of the cloth looks like a hide,
or a skin, but more subtly, perhaps, that skin becomes clothing,
becomes an identity, and a construction.
The use of materials like string and cloth does bring up an issue
of women's work. For Hesse, fibers related to weaving as a culturally
acceptable form of art that women could engage in. However, in
using fibers, she was establishing, both a dialog about femininity
and the restrictions placed on women, as well as using stitching
as a symbolic representation of a healing of wounds. When I consider
sewing in my own work, I am more interested in the idea of it
as binding than I am in specific gender issues. For me, the relationship
between women and fiber is more about the process of needlework
as something delicate, intimate, and requiring time to make. The
honeycomb pattern is intended to aid these typically female attributes
by referencing the kind of community, and relationships that exist
among bees.
This interest in community introduces my struggle to define myself
in relationship to our modern American culture. Because I often
question the effects of mass culture, mass media, and technology,
I relate to the rebelliousness of Hess's work. The obsessive processes
and binding that she used to create her objects became an attempt
to exceed, "limits of law, constraint, and conformity..In
adding more to the rigidity of the structures, and in adding more
to ritual, he [the obsessive person] works destructively."
(Baier, 111) I find this to be an interesting reading of the obsessive
repetition because my work tends to be rather obsessive itself,
but in Hesse's work, it was often a single modular unit that was
repeated to create a whole and that is not always the case with
mine.
My work does not necessarily agree with this type of geometric
construction because I am searching for forms that exist as an
organic body independent of convention. The contrast between the
stark geometry and the anti-form exists in an oppositional relationship
that inherently requires the existence of both poles. One can
not exist without the other, however, the self is by no means
limited to such simple and finite possibilities. The honeycomb
is modular. The significance of it, here, is to define the architectural
space as a cell. It represents, both, the constraints of our physical
body as well as our surrounding environmental bodies. The community,
and labor of the honeycomb contrast to a culture that is continually
losing its sense of community, and tradition, as well as its appreciation
of labor, that in my opinion, are so crucial to a meaningful existence.
The geometry of it is similarly related to the homogenization
that exist in tandem with this culture of conformity and isolation.
Similar to Hesse, the work of Joseph Beuys "pairs extreme
opposites together and emphasizes the transformative power of
art, as well as its ability to achieve a balance between past
and present, the material and the spiritual, the personal and
the universal." (Kreutzer, 79) Regardless of the form that
work/art takes, whether it is as a traditional artisan, an architect,
or a carpenter, the spiritual unity of the person and the work
is fundamental to Beuys' aims and can be viewed as a state of
regeneration and creation capable of healing emotional, societal,
and historical wounds.
In bridging these poles, his work took from his personal life
and attempted to create a kind of cocial sculpture. As a witness
to the effects of a war torn Germany, he was intensely interested
in pain, sickness, suffering and death, because of this, much
of his work is aimed at healing. For a time, he was associated
with Fluxus which was an art movement focused on returning art
to all people. It also focused on anonymity and the idea of a
collective spirit, but overall, his life work/ course work strategy
offered tremendous potential for the awakening of artistic life.
His work focused heavily on the personal symbolism he associated
with materials. In "Felt Suit," this symbolic use of
material as well as many of his other interests can be seen. Made
up of 100 felt suits, the felt represented homogeneity and insulation.
The suits refer to the professional world. The sameness and dullness
of each suit wants to criticize this world because of its removal
from nature. Absent of a human body to wear the suit, it is similar
to an identity that is made and worn without thought as to what
else could be worn. The obsessiveness of blind conformity seems
vaguely harmless in the situation, but in consideration of Hesse's
use of repletion, the suits want to be free of the unnatural restriction
of the world that they belong to. At the same time, the felt offers
comfort perhaps in the lack of individuality between them, and
could be suggestive of a desire for homogeneity outside of this
material realm.
The issue of disease or distortion is something that can be seen
in each of these artist that have commented on so far. One of
the very first artist that I really related to was Louise Bourgeois.
Her personal relationship with her art allowed her to exorcise
her childhood memories by giving them a tangible form, because
of this , her work is obsessively engaged in the internal world
of the artist, and at times, it is intensely dark and mysterious,
but it can also be quite humorous and beautiful in a way that
I aspire to.
In "Nature Study" from 1986, the viewer can see, both,
her interest in relationships and experience the emotional nature
of her work. In this piece, a small intimate marble object rests
on top of an uncarved marble base. The form seems to have an inner
life of its own creating an energy that animates the otherwise
inert rock that it is carved from. It seems sort, at once appearing
lake wrapped flesh, like fingers, flaccid penis', or something
found in nature. It seduces the viewer into following its contours
and understanding the gesture of its body on an intuitive level,
but as this is done, , the relationship between the spiraling
exterior and the object wrapped inside creates a dichotomy of
pain and pleasure. It becomes unclear whether the protruding form
is painfully being strangled or if it is comfortable within its
restrictive and obsessive embrace. The relationship it has with
the base suggests something about the organic versus the inorganic
as well. It is nothing like the untouched piece that it sis upon.
The textures are different, the size, and weight are obviously
different. The subtractive process of making this strange object
seems to reflect her own introspection as a normal woman with
an inner world that lay helpless to her hypersensitive constructions
of reality. In general, her work fluctuates between opposites
much like Hess, and Beuys. It tends to be neither male nor female,
and often both neurotic and erotic at the same time.
Like Hess, there is a highly erotic nature to her work, although,
Bourgeois' early works focused on the sensuality of form, more
so than the tactile qualities of the material. My drawings have
similar formal characteristics to these works. They describe forms
that metamorphosize, that have rounded edges and often are made
up of two parts. My more literal drawing often depict breast-like
images that are adorned with a multitude of nipples. They are
unnatural.and disturbing, representing an interest in the fertility
and sensuality of the female body that carries into my smaller
sculptural work. The nipples distort a normal view of the breast.
They suggest both disease and hyper reproductive capabilities
that are symbolic of the cyclic nature of life, growing, transforming,
and dying.
My sculptures struggle to describe these forms. I rely on the
material to dress the objects in order to create an amalgamated
identity for them. The association attached to the materials are
extremely prevalent in these works, and because of this they are
somewhat of an enigma. However, each one does have a distinct
personality of its own. Within the cell, they are intended to
act as fetishistic objects that are created by the subconscious.
They are each given their own platform to heighten their objectness
as well as to reiterate their obsession. They are also intended
to contrast with the more generalized experience of the honey
comb skin by creating and interior world that focuses on personal
history and eccentricity. They do this mainly through scale and
specificity of the work, as well as through the viewers' interaction
with them. The viewer is more objective in the experience of the
objects, whereas, the space itself causes them to react to their
own feelings and perceptions with in the environment. Overall,
the distiction between the cell the internal space is made by
the different relationships the artist and the audience have with
the work. The work inside is somewhat absurd. It offers the body
as a work in progress, eternally transient, and constantly siphoning
its material/spiritual world.
Our human bodies are the most personal example of the disjunction
that exists when we are brought into this world and asked to make
sense of it. While contradiction is an inevitable part of being
human, separatin g thigs into binary systems supplies no answers,
only the certainty that life is ridiculous in all its fantastic
glory. Understanding our personal life histories is important
because of the fact that we are sentient being who are constantly
processing, constructing, destroying, and recreating ourselves
and our world. Resolving the parts that we find ugly is a matter
of healing our perspectives and actions. Art, in this way, is
a potential prescription from the weighted diseases of our single
and collective minds.
At best the making of art is a cathartic experience that allows
us to reflect on ourselves and perhaps it has some significance
for others as well. It requires time and care and while this does
not necessarily mean that it is great art, in a world that is
increasingly separated form a natural state of being, making are
is a refuge, and should be preserved at all costs. Ideally art
and life would not exclude one another based on their perceived
cultural usefulness, but would be defined as part of the same
thing, as a away of being. Art is not the product of an artist
but the process of tending to the creation of a greater self.
Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. Vintage Books, New York. 1990.
Describes the biological functions of the senses by relating the historic and mythic significance they hold for both humans and animals. Gives poetic descriptions of each of the five senses.
Adriani, Gotz, Vinfried Konnertz and Karin Thomas. Joseph Beuys: Life and Works. Barron's Educational Series, Inc. Woodbury, New York. 1979.
Chronological history of life and works. Provides illustrations and detailed analysis of concepts behind works.
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press. Boston, Massachusetts. 1994.
Phenomenological approach to looking at spaces as a way of understanding psychology of self. Focuses on the body in a variety of ways by relating it to time, to nests, to the universe as well as parts of house like corners, and closets. Makes for an interesting comparison between the art object and the artist.
Baier, Lesley K. Eva Hesse: A Retrospective. Yale University Press. New Haven. 1992.
Provides interesting essays detailing analysis of Eva Hesse's work. Has a few examples of sculpture and a number of 2-dimensional works.
Barrette, Bill. Eva Hesse: Sculpture. Timken Publishers, Inc. New York, 1989.
Supplies a number of photographs of sculptural works.
Bernadac, Marie-Laure and Haans-Ulrich Obrist. Louise Bourgeois: Deconstruction of the Father, Reconstruction of the Father; Writing and interviews 1923-1997. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1998.
Writings and interviews of life and works of Louise Bourgeois.
Calvino, Italo. Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1988.
Talks, specifically, about how to write, but the highly visual language that is used and the interest in the creative process easily relates to art making. Dialectics are a theme that runs throughout the book balancing creation between opposites.
Chris, Bruce, Rebecca Solnit, and Buzz Spector. Ann Hamilton: Sao Paulo, Seattle. University of Washington, Seattle. 1992.
Examines a particular installation done in Seattle. Gives background information relating work to artists' influences as well as artists' own essays on work.
Coomaraswamy, Ananoa K. Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art. Dover Publications, Inc., New York. 1956.
Offers definition of art that supports the idea of "art as life." The artist is seen as any person who unifies their skills and ideas to produce an end.