C H E L S E Y. V A N.

I live in Sunnyside, Queens, but I spent lockdown at my mom and stepdad’s in West Orange, NJ. I lived with them for 3.5 months. The neighborhoods that surround their own are beautiful and lush with foliage. There are many large houses, some mansions.

I made mental note of the change in seasons looking out the sliding glass doors in front of their porch. I bought a disposable camera and took pictures on my many walks, wanting to retain some of that environment/time period before my inevitable return to Queens. 

I’m trying to get back into photography this year, but whenever I read about cameras, I feel as if I am reading a math or physics textbook, become frustrated and overwhelmed, then give up. Disposables are a workaround: I can take pictures without caring in that moment about my lack of knowledge, equipment, or how they turn out. Maybe I will always work intuitively, never technically, though I would at least like to give myself the opportunity to choose...

Two Saturdays ago, I picked up my developed pictures from the drugstore. Initially disappointed with how they turned out, I came to appreciate them after arranging photographs flush with one another (see below for one example, that will soon become one of many photographic quilts). Honestly, i have no idea what I am trying to say beyond “New Jersey is very green” and “documenting lockdown,” both boring. In fact, I don’t think it matters that these were taking during lockdown; they could have been taken any other time of year by someone else. I work intuitively, but typically, I know what it is I am looking to investigate when I begin an art project. This time, it’s different. Hopefully the words and feelings will come to me as I progress.

Man-Made for Window (re/production|re/presentation), Asheville, NC

I don’t fully know what it is about repetitive images and imagery that compels me so much, but I respond to them every time I see them, arranged in a fashion intimate enough for my comprehension. At least 50% of my fascination with repetition has something to do with my being an identical twin, and art is the only place, the only field I have found in which things that are identical, or at the very least, cut from the same cloth, are considered separate, distinct, and purposeful, simply by existing. When celebrating repetition, I am celebrating my own existence, one of two, but also one of one. Anxiety, I assume is where the other 50% (+/-) of my fascination stems from, but I imagine that percentage can be divided further into various other categories whose names I’ve yet to know.

Are repetitive images inherently consistent? How many similarities must a set of images share to be deemed repetitive? And how many images total? I love how easy it is to engage with repetitive forms using photography. Consistency isn’t necessarily easy to attain, but with effort, it appears effortless. Pouring over a collection of photographs, I am soothed by the possible transcendence of their cohesion, past their borders and unto me, my image.

Photographs have changed my relationship to my own body, made me seek consistency in ways I’d not considered prior to my owning a camera, a smartphone, a webcam, etc. But before attaining these devices, I was critical of the reactions I had no control over inside my own body yet believed (and still believe) I ought to, because what good is it to exist as a physical being if the presentation of that being is not in accordance with the mind that governs it?

Man-Made is motivated by a network of anxieties and frustration with an inability to transcend beyond something as finite as a body, a room, by treating it as something infinite, because infinity is seamless; the ultimate depiction of consistency. But this is a paradoxical infinity, because it is unabashedly curated.  

            Women and femme people are held to demanding standards regarding the maintenance of their physicality. We are taught to accept this, resigning ourselves to a life of consistency, flawlessness, and performance; should we choose otherwise, we are faced with ridicule (in actuality, this is inevitable, regardless of how we present ourselves). The relationships we maintain with our bodies, our hair, our clothes, our makeup, or lack thereof, are intimate and vary from person to person. What remains the same is that we are conducting ourselves within a patriarchal society. Gender roles are social constructs. We define ourselves based upon varying degrees of proximity to the concept of femininity, something that is literally man-made, made by men— a collection of traits, behaviors, and aesthetics that remained when it was arbitrarily decided what men are not. It was at this time the male viewpoint was arbitrarily determined society’s default perspective. Femininity is not necessarily performed for men, or anyone, for that matter, but it is inherently performative in that those who have a relationship with the word are constantly assessed, frequently without consent.

            I am a woman, and I suffer from what I presume is Body Dysmorphic Disorder. I am constantly preoccupied with my perceived physical flaws and experience heightened anxiety regarding the maintenance of my (feminine) appearance; this anxiety is acted out through obsessive grooming behaviors. But ideologies do not exist within a vacuum, nor do mental health issues, meaning the patriarchal expectation for feminine perfection is partly to blame for the status of my mental health. Anyone can be afflicted with this disorder however it is impossible to neglect the evidence linking my behavior with expectations of female beauty.

            Informed by my illness, I seek to examine, within an intimate grouping of photographs and text, the relationship between femininity and the unachievable desire for consistency using pattern and repetition. Femininity is characterized by tireless maintenance; my own experiences have led me to transform into something more precise over time, trimming my hair with greater frequency, altering makeup routines and style of dress, yet hoping for day-to-day consistency. This kind of transformation (a precise one) is specific to me, yet the performative aspect behind it is universal to femininity

hey, hi, hllo. 👋🏻  i updated my art website. the statement for man-made needs to be condensed, needs work content-wise, but this is partly why i am sharing it. i am open to suggestions/critique/advancing beyond my personal bias etc. etc. i want the project to be as inclusive as possible without professing to speak for anyone other than myself (not so much by what i’ve included, but what i’ve left out). my perspective is limited, so i cannot advance without critique.

man-made is incredibly personal project, and i am, admittedly, terrified to share my statement. however, it's important as it discusses among many things, something i experience i've never before seen discussed. if you wish to exchange ideas with me, please be delicate and mindful of your language, and i will do the same.