Out of Body
2023
The new "Out of Body" series explores the exhaustive process women go through to come back into our bodies after disassociating from the mega and micro-traumas our bodies undergo, while suppressing our needs and desires in order to serve others first. This goes far deeper than "self-care." This is about the deep, dark work that goes into re-attaching brain to body after retreating into our heads as a safe space to hide from the hyper-critical gaze of the world.
Using found images of women in socially-sanctioned states of public undress, layered with vintage prescription records, correspondence, and Victorian-era etiquette manuals for women, I am working through how these tight rules and constricting structures continue to shape the way we think, act and even attempt to cut, control and re-shape our bodies to conform to societal expectations and conditioning.
I will be creating select pieces from this series into mixed media works on cradled birch panel with additional layers of collage elements, ink and cold wax medium. The images will be deliberately torn and collaged back together, written on with ink and graphite. The severed prints will be disintegrated onto multiple surfaces that must be re-united on the wall to make a whole image.
It's a pleasure to get my hands dirty again and come back home into my body and full range of self-expression while allowing myself to been seen again, "undressed" and exposed.
