"A lot of my work deals with memory and attempting to recreate the past in ways that make it permanent and tangible. However, issues of sexuality and the relationship between masculinity and femininity have become recurring themes in my body of work as well. In my Anti-Aging Device (images 1 and 2), bent wood and a mask brace my knees keeping me in a crawling pose, forcing me to adopt the role of a character in a childhood pretend game. My positions are meant to juxtapose the images of infancy with conceivable sexual implications which I find impossible to ignore as an adult. In my Daddy Issues installation (images 3 and 4), a comical yet somewhat pitiful pink tree decorated with sparkles – which I cut down completely naked - represents all that I have to show for the fragments of masculinity that I inherited from my father before he passed away. Through this sculpture I desperately tried to give form to the "masculine" knowledge, skill set, and perspective that I feel my father could have passed on to me. At the same time, the work acknowledges the notion that - as a straight woman - the closest thing to a father figure in my life will most likely come from the creation of a family of my own and is in that way connected to my own sexuality. In We Didn't Know We Were Feminists, a performance that I shared with fellow artist Sally Caruso (images 5 and 6), we attempted to address another duality related to female sexuality that we have been exploring as individuals and we find other women struggling with: frustration with the ways in which our bodies are so readily objectified while at the same time enjoying the feelings of empowerment and pride that come with this unsolicited attention;  we play a part in the objectification and over-sexualization of women in the media yet we are neither comfortable with nor accepting of the insecurities triggered by our own objectification."
pixelskylines
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
origamiaround
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
