Visaya Bose ART

Project 1: The Body, Identity and The Self

TITLE: MESSAGES FROM THE MARGINS 2016 The impact of social media, social networking and the proliferation of instantaneous, context-free imagery has influenced the way we ‘read’ images.  Internet sites that include blogs, Instagrams and ‘click bait’ advertising to name a few demand quick-look rapid-response viewing patterns that are in direct opposition to the slow meditative considerations traditionally associated with art.

This body of work seeks to juxtapose the materials and processes of traditional craft-making to contemporary subject matter and patterns of association in order to challenge and extend the canon of art. Within each banner an implied narrative is suggested by the images, and in others by the images’ relationships to text. Crafted out of canvas drop sheets, embroidery, and felt, the DIY-type objects toy with the viewer by blurring the boundaries between painting and sculpture and craft, resulting in a series of hybrid forms that evade categorisation.

The most influential works for this series include Mike Kelleys silk banner series Pansy Metal/Clovered Hoof 1989 that were initially intended for costumes in a performance piece. These images follow Kelleys signature antiestablishment style.

“Pansy Metal/Clovered Hoof appears almost like crude doodles that one would find in the margins of a high school notebook, desk or bathroom wall. However, here they are enlarged to the size of banners like one would see hanging in a gymnasium, as if the outsiders in school decided to showcase the iconography that symbolized their counter culture.”

Similarly, I have chosen marginal characters and marginal statements from ‘marginal’ advertising such as clickbait and have upscaled them to celebratory scale, and by so doing have focused full attention on the subliminal messages that exist everywhere in the contemporary world.  

Another key influence to my practice has been Judy Chicago’s entrance banners to The Dinner Party, 1979. Chicago’s historical reclamation of women’s craft skills as important vehicles for making artistic statements remains valid today.  As technological imagery becomes more prevalent, the slower processes of handiwork such as stitching, embroidery and quilting carry with them an awareness of the value of work and the handmade. However, in my research it occurred to me that many artists who work using material mediums, particularly stitching and embroidery, don’t make the the works themselves. The reasoning behind  this would have to do with the time-consuming process it requires. In this series the ‘making’ of the work was integral for me, as I remain committed to a hands -on approach as I believe it gives me a stronger connection the the work I produce.