Artist Statement

Bibliography

Image Gallery

Home

Close Portfoilio
(and return to SMP 2007 index)

ARTIST STATEMENT

This body of work has been a self realization surrounding a process between my inner needs and how I project them into society.  Society pushes the image of perfection and shakes my confidence in the decisions that I make.  I feel as though there are many expectations placed on the twenty- something woman that I embody.  For example, I am graduating college, and I need to figure out my career as well as the fact that I am approaching thirty, and I need to find a suitable partner to settle down with and have children.  These overwhelming expectations create fearful reactions.  These reactions occur when I feel as though I am not taking the correct strides toward them, or perhaps cannot realistically obtain them.
       When I begin to question my inner needs and my actions, I act out of fear.  I am fearful and afraid of ultimately disappointing my family and me.  I have recognized the steps that I take in order to deal with the fear.  I begin by rejecting myself.  I reject my intuition and physical cues of my body which tell me what I really want and need.  I push it away and repress my feelings, replacing them with what I think others would find acceptable.  This is a deeply destructive course of action.  My mind and body cry out like a little girl inside of me begging for my attention.  She only wants to be heard because her message is important.  She is telling me that I need to act out of truth, not fear. 
       When I find the balance between incorporating my needs with societies, is when I find that my goals become a reality.  The self destructive mindset of ignoring you inner thoughts happens more often than the positive conversation.  From an early age I was conditioned to use a negative train of thought through the role models that I chose.  I began choosing the women on the glossy covers of high fashion and Hollywood magazines.  I dreamed of having their high profile lives.  I was envious of their perfect physiques, and immaculate wardrobes.  I did not question their actions or the negative effect it had on my self esteem because they had millions of fans.  Yet, as I would look past their perfect veneers, I saw that their lives were chaotic.  Their most personal moments were spilled onto the pages of every magazine.  I quickly saw how detrimental these role models were, and how following their image was only triggering my own repressive cycle.  I saw the need to locate role models who could denounce the fantasy of the media and show me what the real world consists of.  I chose my best role models locally: my mother, grandmother, sister, and spiritual teachers.
       When people do not break out of the cycle of self rejection, they run the risk of tumbling down terrible life paths.  I struggled with how I wanted to deal with this intimate subject.  I wanted to explore the topic, but I did not want to post my face on the walls of the gallery.  I was stuck in the fearful process that I am exploring through m this body of work.  To create a distance between my intimate autobiography being smeared all over the gallery walls I created a buffer in the form of an alter ego to take the harsh criticism for me.  My alter ego is tall, sassy, curvy, a bold fox.  One may as, of all the creatures you could choose from, why a fox?  Having been personally involved in the sport of foxhunting all my life I understand and identify with the fox species because of the complex roles that they play.  In a foxhunt the fox is the one who is pursued.  They can either be the victim by making a grave mistake and getting caught, or outsmart the masses that are hunting them down and live.  These decisions are made in a split second every time that the hunt comes to their territory. Both the fox and I are confronted with hard decisions almost every day of our lives. 
       Another useful reason for choosing the fox is the dimension of humor it adds to the work.  I am dealing with serious issues, but I choose to treat them with humor. Humor disarms and makes it easier for people to consider critical positions.  If I were to create this body of work with real human characters, it would be offensive.  By introducing the anthropomorphized fox and her animal friends, the critical nature of the stories become funny.  We look at these cartoon characters and we can laugh at them.  Along with the anthropomorphized characters, a large part of the humor in this body of work is satire.  My artwork satirizes the lifestyles and decisions that the fox and I make when they reject their intuitive thoughts and follow the ridiculous suggestion of society.  I am judging the fox and her decisions just like society is constantly scrutinizing my own decisions.  This vicious cycle creates sharp critical and explicit humor in my artwork. 
       I compiled the fox’s story as a mock documentary.  The audience moves through a story of the anthropomorphized fox, starting with her finding her inspiration for her soul searching adventures in a self-help article in a Cosmopolitan magazine.  The article lays out a four step program that supposedly will lead her to discover the truth with in herself.  She is told that she needs to find religion, a man, the right fashion image, and a career in order to fulfill her role in society.  To tell her story, I have used real life objects with cartoon styled drawings.  The presence of both real life objects and constructed images gives the viewer evidence that she exists in two worlds: ours and her make believe fox world.  Her story is told through the letters and postcards she writes to family and friends, cartoon drawings, a posted calendar of social events, a suitcase of personal possessions, memorabilia of her relationship with her boyfriend, telephone conversations, and mock photographs of her and her family. 
       There are a number of stories that take place in this humorous tale.   There is the story of the fox looking for fulfillment, the story of our perfection obsessed culture and there is my story pertaining to finding the will to be my own person.  The story about the fox is the story of the hunt.  A foxhunt acts out the classic drama of the nemesis.  During a foxhunt the hounds hunt the fox during a long drawn out game.  This real life competition is embedded within the context of the make believe narrative of the main character. 
       The second story is about the perfection obsessed culture that I live in.  I am satirizing society and the women, including myself, who fall victim to the false promise of a magic fix for our problems.  Throughout the narrative the hounds are always in the presence of the fox.  In a sense the hounds are chasing and taunting the struggling fox as they breeze through life.  The hound represents the societal standards and the epitome of perfection.  They have the right hair cut, makeup, and outfit.  Most importantly they have the men.  The fox wants to become the hound.  She is trying to change herself during the step-by-step program that she has read in a hound magazine.  She is envious of the life that hounds have, and she wants to embody all of their qualities.  The envious qualities of the fox show how flawed she really is and how strong her insecurities are.   She is lacking self determination and does not believe in herself.  She is looking outside for happiness, looking towards plastic surgery or her new wardrobe.    Her quest for self realization is fruitless because she cannot overcome the pressures of society and discover her own self-love. 
       The third story is a fictional narrative that is based on real events of my life.  The autobiographical nature of the work is exploring how I have rejected my own thoughts and needs, and have replaced them with unrealistic standards of our culture.  I try to desperately fit into society, but the cost is abandoning who I really am.  I want nothing more than to be loved, look great, be a role model, and be envied by other women.   I have read the magazines, taken the quizzes, and have tried the self help section of “Barnes and Nobles”.  I have been on this very path that fox is stumbling down, and I know that much of my audience has been there too.
       Like the fox, I want to believe that there is a quick fix.  If I hear one comment made about my figure, read one article about how someone is defined as perfect, and I begin to slip into a stage of fear. These negative thoughts are compounded with the constant bombarding by society of what perfection truly is.   All it takes is one of these comments and my confidence and self values are destroyed.  The fox, like me, is insecure enough to fall prey to the fantasy of self-recreation only to find that what she really needs is to learn how to accept and love herself as she truly is. 
       While creating this body of work I was inspired by a range of artists.  Orlan is a French artist who uses her body as a canvas for her artwork.  Her shocking performance pieces entail her having plastic surgery to alter her body to conform to what men truly think is ideal beauty.  Her work questions whether women are choosing to alter their images for themselves, or are they changing themselves for society.
       Orlan’s approach to self beautification is conducted in a serious manner.  She is shocking her viewers with her willingness to deface her self to make her point.  Like my own work, Orlan’s actions implicitly criticize our culture’s pursuit of physical perfections at all costs.  But whereas Orlan puts herself directly in her work by choosing to work in the most literal of mediums, I choose to distance myself through alter egos and fictional narratives.   
       The cartoonist Lynda Barry confronts issues surrounding women and the pressures of society through the use of humor.  Her comic strips depict real humans drawn in a cartoon fashion.  Barry and I are distancing ourselves from personal criticism through our medium.  While her subject matter also pertains to the problematic preoccupation of body image, she bypasses serious self criticism through fictional characters.  The characters have life like concerns, but are dealing with them through their make believe world.  Like me she uses humor through the characters because it is easier to get your audiences attention and interaction when dealing with such a serous subject. 
       Since I live in a society that reminds me everyday of how flawed I am, I have been conditioned from an early age to do whatever it takes to fit into the fantasy world.  This body of work has unearthed a painstaking process of self-examination as well as trying to change the newly realized destructive habits.  Another motivation for this body of work is the hope that viewers will dig through the layers of humor to realize the deeper dialogue.  Through narrating the fox’s journey, I realize the need for future examination and future hard work through difficult issues. Ultimately, this artwork has served as an inspiration for future artwork in the hopes that I will no longer need a buffer to deal with self criticism, but can put my own image onto the gallery wall to examine.