Statement of Purpose draft 1

The most important battle I’m ever going to fight is complacency. The best tool I have for fighting complacency is making art. The act of creating is in itself a hopeful act, and I connect apathy with a lack of hope. I believe that making art is actively fighting back against ideas and values that are spoon fed to me, reclaiming the thoughts in my head. I think that as art functions for me personally, so too can it function for a culture or society as a liminal space. 

A liminal space is where “one's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation, but also the possibility of new perspectives. Indeed, 'if liminality is regarded as a time and place of withdrawal from normal modes of social action, it can be seen as potentially a period of scrutiny for the central values and axioms of the culture in which it occurs.”(Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process (Penguin 1969) p. 155). I try to explore this idea of art functioning as a liminal space on both an individual and more universal level in my art. 

My art submitted covers about two years and even though the images are diverse and showing a progression there are some common themes. I often use “low” materials, found objects, sewing materials, or collage elements mixed in with my paintings. I feel that this is connected to a couple different heritages for me. When the Abstract Expressionist’s started using house paint and sticks to paint with it was a break from more elite materials, and it was the first real American-based art movement. The thread and ribbon are obviously connected to feminist attempts to elevate traditionally women crafts to a more hallowed place in the art world. 

Another common theme is the depiction of feminine forms. In the body of work that I submitted there are women exploding, pixelating, drowning, falling, flying, giving birth, and fossilizing. On an abstract level I believe that this perhaps over-used discussion has validity because it mimics the visual world I swim in which is supersaturated with cartoons of photoshopped women. On a personal level it has validity because not only am I female, but I’ve had peculiar experiences which make the gender discussion seem more urgent, which range from working at sexist restaurants to being brought up Mormon to being bulimic in high school. 

Explosions are a re-occurring theme, both visually and thematically, and the connection between explosions and gender issues is that the explosions heighten the sense of urgency. There are many things wrong with the synthetic pixelated world. Human beings are exhibiting increasing signs of self-destruction, and whether it’s a personal implosion or an external explosion the worst response in my mind is to pretend like things are going to fix themselves.