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Print and book art assemblages

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MFA Thesis Exhibition: May 2008

Steuben South Gallery: Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

Reconsidering the truth of my remembered reality, through objects and documentation remaining accessible over the years, was a driving force for this body of works. The process began while sorting through drawers, shelves and closets in my parents’ house, uncovering forgotten matter, fragments of my past, proof that I was there, with these possessions, at various stages of my life. The story I was piecing together felt like reading about someone else, although it was clearly autobiographical. This led me to conclude that my recollections, in totality, had become somewhat surreal.

Through the process of making this work, I have attempted to fill in some of the gaps, explore the cause-and-effect relationships which connect who I am today, with my younger unharmed inner core. This has been painful as well as educational, as I continue to learn valuable lessons from both myself, as well as the family I grew up alongside of.

This body of work represents an exercise in art-as-therapy, as well as a questioning of the meaning of imagery and objects as a means of forming one’s identity, both during life and posthumously.

The books (set #1) were taken from my mother’s bookshelves, where they have been situated for decades. Many of them predate me. I grew fascinated with handling books about topics which frightened me in my coming-of-age as a woman, especially stemming from my apprehensions about my ability to be a mother myself, and everything which that entails. I originally turned to the texts to utilize knowledge and learning as a means of overcoming fears, but of course, ironically, can no longer read the books since I have completely marred them. This is compensated for by the fact that through the project, I have grown closer with my own mother and have found that we can now more freely discuss these issues in ways like never before! These works are yet-to-be-titled.

The other series of altered books (set #2) are derived both from my own bookshelves in my parents’ house and my mother’s. They are a triptych, representative of my own life’s chronology thus far. It begins when I am in the womb, and leads into my creative childhood, then into my adolescence during which I shut myself away from many things. The third book represents a false self-identification with certain behaviors or moods, leading into a new and more honest quest to figure out what really defines me, as an emergent adult. These works are yet-to-be-titled.

The large woodcut relief prints on fabric (set #3) were inspired by old photographs from my childhood, which I have cropped, enlarged, and rendered using my own hand with the carving tools on panels of birch. The imagery becomes iconic and further removed from the reality it assumingly projects and documents as a photographic image. The objects installed around these works come from my life as well, and relate somehow to the moment or people in the adjacent image.

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