Statement
We live in a world that continues to operate through hierarchies in which one voice limits others. While progress and change occur, fierce loyalty to narrow thought and antiquated ideals remain. I am interested in the power struggle and conflict within institutional and interpersonal relationships. Themes of class and marginalization are present in the current work and speak to an overall concern with the influence and abuse of institutionalized power.
In this body of work I seek to mine territories of displacement, subverting the known and pushing the familiar into a foreign existence. The contextual history of objects and the physical spaces in which they should – or never would – dwell is considered in relation to the psychological and emotional responses such renderings might affect. I choose to reference elements such as furniture for their cultural baggage and potential as familiar objects to allow the viewer to bring to them her or his own experience. The figure remains absent from the work to allow the object to become the protagonist and don a symbolic presence.
There is intention in the specificity of the furniture. As concepts develop, I find myself drawn to Colonial-influenced styles. The Chippendale style furniture often sacrificed comfort for appearance and utilized motifs including the seashell, which referenced collection and currency and identified the Chippendale as a status symbol. The claw foot was appropriated from Chinese variation of a dragon’s claw clutching a pearl. In essence, the Colonial or Chippendale style is uncomfortable and impractical, appropriates or takes for its own use, and is grasping or clutching, elements I find pertinent in referencing institutionalized oppression. The furniture presented speaks to westernized culture and specific locations and times where gender, class, and race have been controlled and whose relationship history is pock-marked with roles of power. Additionally by presenting the objects as distressed or or damaged it speaks to the history and experience of an individual they might represent.
The use of perspective and location is critical. By rending objects in a low angle perspective, I seek to heighten the prestige of the objects as well as illustrate a looming force. The angle might also be associated with a child’s perspective, placing the object in an authoritative pose. Often the furniture is placed in a locationless space. While scale may be implied through perspective, the goal is to render the object psychologically monumental as opposed to defining its size by depicting known space. While place does occur in the work, its role becomes secondary to examination of a system and condition.
In addition to using furniture elements as a means to examine class and power, I am also exploring the possibilities of toile fabric. Like the Chippendale furniture, the history of toile ties to class and status: as the fabric grew in popularity and fashionability, Louis XVI declared it a royal fabric while the fabric’s idyllic pastoral scenes donned an element of propaganda. In developing my version of toile, I considered some realities of low- and working class existence in the United States. By pairing the toile with the furniture and considering their historical context, I seek to intensify my examination and critique of institutionalized oppression and how the voice or decisions of those in power may affect others.
We live in a world that continues to operate through hierarchies in which one voice limits others. While progress and change occur, fierce loyalty to narrow thought and antiquated ideals remain. I am interested in the power struggle and conflict within institutional and interpersonal relationships. Themes of class and marginalization are present in the current work and speak to an overall concern with the influence and abuse of institutionalized power.
In this body of work I seek to mine territories of displacement, subverting the known and pushing the familiar into a foreign existence. The contextual history of objects and the physical spaces in which they should – or never would – dwell is considered in relation to the psychological and emotional responses such renderings might affect. I choose to reference elements such as furniture for their cultural baggage and potential as familiar objects to allow the viewer to bring to them her or his own experience. The figure remains absent from the work to allow the object to become the protagonist and don a symbolic presence.
There is intention in the specificity of the furniture. As concepts develop, I find myself drawn to Colonial-influenced styles. The Chippendale style furniture often sacrificed comfort for appearance and utilized motifs including the seashell, which referenced collection and currency and identified the Chippendale as a status symbol. The claw foot was appropriated from Chinese variation of a dragon’s claw clutching a pearl. In essence, the Colonial or Chippendale style is uncomfortable and impractical, appropriates or takes for its own use, and is grasping or clutching, elements I find pertinent in referencing institutionalized oppression. The furniture presented speaks to westernized culture and specific locations and times where gender, class, and race have been controlled and whose relationship history is pock-marked with roles of power. Additionally by presenting the objects as distressed or or damaged it speaks to the history and experience of an individual they might represent.
The use of perspective and location is critical. By rending objects in a low angle perspective, I seek to heighten the prestige of the objects as well as illustrate a looming force. The angle might also be associated with a child’s perspective, placing the object in an authoritative pose. Often the furniture is placed in a locationless space. While scale may be implied through perspective, the goal is to render the object psychologically monumental as opposed to defining its size by depicting known space. While place does occur in the work, its role becomes secondary to examination of a system and condition.
In addition to using furniture elements as a means to examine class and power, I am also exploring the possibilities of toile fabric. Like the Chippendale furniture, the history of toile ties to class and status: as the fabric grew in popularity and fashionability, Louis XVI declared it a royal fabric while the fabric’s idyllic pastoral scenes donned an element of propaganda. In developing my version of toile, I considered some realities of low- and working class existence in the United States. By pairing the toile with the furniture and considering their historical context, I seek to intensify my examination and critique of institutionalized oppression and how the voice or decisions of those in power may affect others.