Fairy tales, biblical stories, and folk narratives inform both my female
identity and the conceptual underpinning of my sculpture. I insert personal
biases, memories, hopes, and fears into my work in order to satirize and expose
cultural assumptions about gender, sexuality, and power. To this end, I make my
sculptural work from quotidian objects that reference the visual language of my
late-twentieth century Midwestern childhood. Dollhouse furniture. A bedpost.
China cabinet. I manipulate these found objects in order to question their original
purpose and the narratives they remind me of and to confront my own
ambivalence toward power and commodified desire.
The implicit suggestion of a happy ending in everyday American
experience is suggested in retirement ads, children’s toys and clothing, television
shows and movies. Disney regularly comes out with new princesses and
remakes the old, drawing in old and new audiences alike and recreates
believable versions of “Once Upon A Time” that become harder and harder to
separate from reality. My work is suspended in this tension. These narratives are
embedded with my hopes and fears. On one hand: a rescue, a prince, a castle,
and children. On the other: dependence, betrayal, abandonment, poverty, and
eternal damnation.
identity and the conceptual underpinning of my sculpture. I insert personal
biases, memories, hopes, and fears into my work in order to satirize and expose
cultural assumptions about gender, sexuality, and power. To this end, I make my
sculptural work from quotidian objects that reference the visual language of my
late-twentieth century Midwestern childhood. Dollhouse furniture. A bedpost.
China cabinet. I manipulate these found objects in order to question their original
purpose and the narratives they remind me of and to confront my own
ambivalence toward power and commodified desire.
The implicit suggestion of a happy ending in everyday American
experience is suggested in retirement ads, children’s toys and clothing, television
shows and movies. Disney regularly comes out with new princesses and
remakes the old, drawing in old and new audiences alike and recreates
believable versions of “Once Upon A Time” that become harder and harder to
separate from reality. My work is suspended in this tension. These narratives are
embedded with my hopes and fears. On one hand: a rescue, a prince, a castle,
and children. On the other: dependence, betrayal, abandonment, poverty, and
eternal damnation.
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