Inspiration from the past

This is my personal statement concerning two of the main pieces that I looked at for inspiration over the summer. It is good for me to reflect on my thoughts and feelings at the time I made these pieces and my artist statement sums them up very well. These pieces were made in the class Arts and Bodies, Fall 2009.


" The body is beautiful; it is beautiful in more ways than what meets the eye. It is enriched with emotions, feelings of pain, joy, confusion, laughter, and hatred – it is these sensations that make each individual unique. Through my work I hope to bring these issues to the surface, baring them for the world to examine. I look to see who can relate to these emotions and who cannot. I am always most curious of those who cannot. The viewer’s face is initially full of curiosity as he/she views my work, asking “why.” I’d like to get inside the viewer’s head, travel though his/her chain of thoughts, as he/she sub conscientiously searches for an answer, a meaning.

My work reflects my fascination with the physical body combined with a series of my own personal emotions. Incorporating my own body into the work for others to react upon brings me a sense of joy and excitement. I’m looking not for just a reaction to my work, but to how I feel. What are people’s thoughts? Do they agree with me? Disagree? Am I viewed as a revolutionary bringing an issue to light? Or am I completely insane? I enjoy the feeling of butterflies that flutter at the bottom of my stomach as I go layout (anywhere from wall size to 2 in. by 2 in.) representations of me, who I am.

I have recurrently relied on my own body as a medium by using it as a stamp, mark-maker, a silhouette, canvas, and even a decorative item, to then transcends my emotions. The connection between medium and emotion is not necessarily apparently, but the way in which I use my body or combine it with other materials allows for a relationship to be formed.

Part of me believes it is the process of creating that I go through that allows me to encounter personal understanding or meaning to my life experiences. Through physical or emotional happenings, I often times feel left in the dark. I look at my art as the aftermath, a way to ask myself questions such as, “Why did I let this happen to me?” “How does that affect me today?” “What happens if I take this part of me and transform it… will it change the way I feel about things?” These questions have allowed me to explore a range of themes in culture, identity, existence of the body, use of the body, and body as material, which, have given me many answers in return.

I must conclude with the fact that there is something to be said about using your entire body to create a piece. You have complete control over it, yet at the same time you have no idea what the result will be. Our eyes can only guide you so much around our own body, the rest is left up to the other four senses… and I find that fascinating."