The Body-Nothing Else

Elinor Carucci (135)

2011-12-25T13:56:00.004+01:00

From "A limited glimpse into my most recent body of work, my children."

Elinor Carucci

Marsha Parrilla (134)

2011-12-22T17:51:00.006+01:00

'Gris' Conceived and Performed by: Marsha Parrilla

Piece created for: THE BODY-NOTHING ELSE

Marsha Parrilla's company website:

danzaorganica

Inspired by a world where technology binds people in unprecedented ways, Marsha Parrilla (Boston) and Omar Robles (Chicago), two Puerto Rican exiled artists, decided to create a virtual movement dialogue through video.
binariusdance

Helen Payne (133)

2011-11-28T16:24:00.002+01:00

-bather-
(the urge to push)

-standing nude-
(the urge to push)

-untitled-
(the urge to push)

Helen writes:

Birth is among our most dramatic and transformative experiences and yet it is seldom depicted in art. Women, who have been under the microscope in the history of art, are left undepicted when giving birth. It is a rich vein, filled with drama, questions of identity, mystery, joy and sexuality. These works (The Urge to Push) seek to explore this uncharted territory. It is happy art that sticks a finger in the eye of the male gaze and sexualized depictions of women.

Helen Payne

Mimi Shapiro (132)

2011-11-24T18:29:00.005+01:00

wrestling the volcano!! altered book:

-wrestling the volcano!! altered book collage, watercolor and wax, spreads from the book !-

Mimi writes:

on January 25th 2011 fell and broke my ankle on a volcano in Auckland NZ. here are a few of the photos and the book that i made ! to document the ordeal - it was an interesting learning experience ! in patience....since after surgery ! i could not walk on the ankle for 7 weeks....

mimi shapiro

Billie J. Maciunas (131)

2011-10-13T12:24:00.003+02:00

To what great history
does she refer when she answers
the moon’s terrible pull
with rage and torment
that the earth will not swallow her yet

not the history of multiplication
but maybe of single numbers
she is a straw in the smoke bitten
wind.

©billie late 70s

Songs to dead lovers:

if you have not consented to be my lover
I claim you still
like a cold and killing envelope of snow
over all hope of new growth’s promise

but you consumed by the fierce heat
of elemental will to vanish boldly
elude my crude grasp
you must be an innocent birth
and my death the center of your
blazing heart

©billie 1979

Last Will and Testament:

All that matters is the skeleton. If
In ideal repose, fetal is good--
protective, like Aztec child mummies.
But if flatly forced, let the box be simple
pine. Fast feast of deathly horror, and
eternal peaceful noble bones.
Don’t embalm me. Give my living parts
to the living. Remember me
in your movements, your best unguarded
expressions, as I do you.

©billie 02

Martha Wilson (130)

2011-10-07T10:27:00.007+02:00

Growing Old, July 15, 2009.

My Authentic Self, 1974/2011

Before and After 1974/2008

Beauty and Beastly, 1974/2009.

(Images from 'I have become my own worst fear,' at P.P.O.W. gallery)

Excerpt from 'Martha Wilson: The Liminal Trickster,' by Lauren Bakst on BOMBLOG, 10/5:

Martha Wilson’s solo exhibition, "I have become my own worst fear," comprises a series of self portraits that repeatedly distort the self until any fixed notion of subjectivity has utterly dissolved. Spanning from 1974 to 2011, these works reveal Wilson through specific markers in time, and invite the viewer to imagine the lived space beyond each image. Through the juxtaposition of younger and older, of before and after, Wilson makes tangible the space between these captured moments. Her images seem to ask, how did time pass between then and now? Furthermore, what was the embodied experience of that passage? In Beauty and Beastly, a profile image of Wilson in 1974 is positioned adjacent to a profile image of Wilson in 2011, a portrait of the artist peering simultaneously backwards and forwards at herself in spite of and through time. Rather than to spiral into an unending cycle of self reflection and critique, when Wilson looks at herself, she also looks at the viewer, beckoning us to examine the value systems that shape our ways of seeing. Her image and text work invoke the expectations and preconceptions that are written and re-written on women’s bodies every day. The terms “beauty” and “beastly” applied by Wilson to the young and old images of herself reference the persistent intertwining of the personal and the political, bringing awareness to the cultural discourses that frame the female body.

(to read the entire post by Lauren Bakst, follow the link to BOMBLOG.)

Martha Wilson

Siglinde Kallnbach (129)

2011-08-29T18:27:00.005+02:00

Siglinde Kallnbach's Performance during the Opening of her Solo Exhibition at Ludwig Forum for International Art Aachen/Germany 2008/9

Link to Siglinde Kallnbach's international lifelong

"a performancelife"- project (since 2001):

empathy and solidarity for people suffering from cancer.

a performancelife-e. V. on fb

Siglinde Kallnbach

Amanda Rossmiller (128)

2011-08-22T17:52:00.003+02:00

eternal expanse of white
stretches below
belly of a fish,
fitted under fat, pale bosoms
scored with deep blue veins
like a fine cheese
shoved in a shadowy corner
of la fromagerie

once ripened in youth
bursting with nectar tastes
sweet in the mouth of young
lovers
watch
as the fruit wrinkles
then puckers
when flies start to gather

plant saplings in thick, moist
soil
found below,
honeysuckle me home

©Amanda Rossmiller

Giustina Surbone (127)

2011-08-20T20:04:00.003+02:00

Venus of Willendorf, oil on canvas 66"x44"

Ravaged, oil on canvas 32.5"x 26.5"

Eye of the Beholder, oil on canvas 60"x 44"

Giustina writes:

i am fat. i am thin. i am hurt. i am hiding. i am starving. i am dependent. i am self-medicating. i am out- of- control. i am obsessed with my body. i am repulsed when i look in the mirror. i am a distortion of myself. i am young. i am fecund. i am lush. i am round. i am soft. i am the object of your desire. i am powerful. i am a vessel through which life flows. i am the madonna. i am a distortion of myself. i am old. i am sagging. i am drooping. i am bent. i am barren. i am crumbling. i am cemented. i am unrecognizable. i am lonely. i am sick. i am invisible. i am a distortion of myself. i am searching. i am strong. i am bright. i am vital. i am loving. i am joyful. i am gentle. i am compassionate. i am charitable. i am brave. i am worthy. i am trustworthy. i am old. i am young. i am fat. i am thin. i am gay. i am straight. i am sick. i am well. i am rich. i am poor. i am self-accepting. i am peaceful. i am at peace.

Giustina Surbone

Nina Sobell (126)

2011-08-19T10:56:00.006+02:00

Baby, Chickey!, performance in 1982.

Photo by Chris Shearer.

For the video of this performance and other performances, click here.

From the Exhibition catalog Nina Sobell, at Gallery AREA 53, 2008
Curated by Evelin Stermitz:

In her performance art video Hey! Baby Chickey Nina Sobell appears nude playing with a raw cooking chicken. With a few simple manipulations, she eradicates the cultural distance between mother and woman as sexual being. Playing on the symbolic connection between food and sex, cooking is transformed into sexuality, but the involvement of the dead chicken pushes that sexuality towards bestiality and necrophilia. The scene is further complicated when the same chicken is given the role of baby. Sobell plays with the chicken, rocking it, holding it up by its arms as if teaching it to walk, and swinging it from breast to breast in what can only be described as a milking dance. This collapsing of the baby role with the chicken’s already established roles of dead animal, food material, and sexual object violates other taboos, including infanticide, cannibalism, and pedophilia.
Chris Straayer, Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-orientations in Film and Video, Columbia University Press, New York, 1996

Nina Sobell

Janet Culbertson (125)

2011-08-18T16:49:00.007+02:00

-the large one-

How I feel ...

-odalisk fat-

I am trying to see the addition of extra pounds as classic rather than problematical.

I use the Ingres odalisque pose.

-In between-

Janet Culbertson

Evelin Stermitz (124)

2011-08-16T19:06:00.007+02:00

SILENCE

experimental performative video

DV PAL/NTSC 2009

loop / total time 00:01:00:00

Sound by Elise Kermani, Ear Music, 2001.

Performance and Video by Evelin Stermitz.
(click image to view video)

Textual structures on body fragments as inscriptions on the female body of metaphorical injuries by rape violence are merging into an image of speechless suppression by male supremacy. Rape remains as a silent terror and global transgression, as a silent field of unspoken reality, because the afflicted women are broken.

This video work is created for FemLink The International Video Collages, on the collage theme of 'Aggression' for the year 2010.

WHITE BAND CUT

video performance

DV PAL/NTSC 2007

3 channel video

total time 00:09:25:00

Performance, Sound, Video by Evelin Stermitz.

Special credits to Nina Sobell for access to her studio.

(click image to view video)

The ritualised cutting of a white band wrapped around the body symbolizes the metaphoric disposal of inner and outer bonds as restrictions in an internal monologue. The woman can be seen as a gift as well as a captive. The white band describes muted halcyon segues flowing in a void space.

evelinstermitz.net

artfem.tv

world-of-female-avatars.net

Cade Pemberton (123)

2011-08-14T09:39:00.003+02:00

6 x 3.5 foot acrylic work on paper, 2011.

Cade writes:

The Nude speaks to the power and vulnerability of women and the debate over weight as beautiful or a curse.

Cade Pemberton

Carol Radsprecher (122)

2011-08-12T08:56:00.003+02:00

Carol writes:

I have always needed to use visual representation of the female body—my body—in my work. When I was a young woman, my particular body shape was a popular one in my culture (American). As my body has aged (and continues to age – no reversing this process!), its shape is not so conventionally appealing. Stage 1 breast cancer, diagnosed twelve years ago, did not result in any glaring—I use that word pointedly—changes to my body, but age is doing its whittling away, puffing up, slackening, firming, wrinkling or smoothing away…. I can live with it!

Carol Radsprecher

Jackie Skrzynski (121)

2011-07-13T17:02:00.003+02:00

drawings from the hybrids series

Jackie writes:

I began making these drawings as I started my marriage and family. Strange as it may sound, they helped me calm down about the fears I had regarding labor and motherhood. In fact, these drawings helped me persevere as an artist and see what I was doing in a larger context. The hybrids recast creatures from myths and folklore into contemporary archetypes for the modern family. Emerson’s advice to “first be good animals” suggests a respect for what civilized life so often ignores. I am, after all, an animal. The figures may be mistaken for a quasi-sexualized freak show, but intend to reveal a more complex metaphor. For example, the absurdity of the reclining nude cum sow pokes fun at the notion of ‘supermom.’ The woman is erotic, deformed, a goddess and a pig.

Jackie Skrzynski

Marisa Polin (120)

2011-07-02T16:44:00.004+02:00

-No Shame-
Acrylic/linen, 140x70cm

Marisa Polin

Nuala Cabral (119)

2011-06-17T15:38:00.003+02:00

An experimental film about street harassment. Walking Home, Nuala says, is for the walkers, the talkers and those who say nothing. She wanted to portray a diverse range of people, because street harassment is universal, just like all forms of violence. Including voices of several women explaining their names, signifies universality and solidarity. Walking Home attempts to question and disrupt the acceptance and the pervasive silence around these everyday interactions.

Nuala Cabral

More on Nuala's Anti Street Harassment Efforts

Tamara Wyndham (118)

2011-05-24T19:46:00.003+02:00

Secret Glory
from the Body Prints, acrylic on cotton

Tower of Light

from the Body Prints, acrylic on cotton

Tamara writes about the Body Prints:

My body prints are self-portraits in which I examine my anatomy and posture, and how the muscular tension, bone alignment, and balance of my body indicate ways in which I open or shut myself to the world. I also focus on the aura surrounding and emanating from the body. I also draw upon images from ancient burial shrouds, mummies, Neolithic cave paintings, Eastern and Western medical charts, Kirlian and x-ray photography. The process of making these involves one or more actual contact body prints, which I may then work further with brushes, my fingers, airbrush, and various splattered painting techniques.

Tamara Wyndham

Ellen Schippers (117)

2011-05-15T16:30:00.006+02:00

-3 images from 'beauty'-

-silent cry-

Life performance 'beauty' at the women in paradise festival 2007, performer: Jeannette Legger

Impression of the exhibition Frauensehnsucht (2010) at Loods 6, Amsterdam. The second edition of a triptych about gender.

Ellen's statement:

Ellen Schippers is a multi-disciplinary artist, who combines wearable sculptures, performance, dance, music, light and poetry in theatrical video-installations. She creates a “fantasy” world that is continuously bursting at the seams.
Her work is about gender, like stereotypical male and female images, ideals of beauty and about the contradiction between image versus authenticity. Schippers strips fixed images by inflating and deconstructing them and reveals the authentic emotions that are hidden behind these selfmade images.

Ellen Schippers
Ellen Schippers ArtExperience (facebook)

Dorien Plaat (116)

2011-05-08T10:13:00.002+02:00

Frans Ellenbroek (Natural History Museum Brabant, the Netherlands) says about Dorien's work:

The figures in Dorien's paintings non-verbally say: 'my outside is paper thin, so you can look inside, look how beautiful I am, not 'beautiful' in the sense of a transient physical beauty, but beautiful with eternal value, authenticity and thus with vulnerability.' That way the figures of Dorien show themselves in total vulnerability and are therefore not weak but strong, precisely because they are at peace with their vulnerability and, even proudly so, cherish it.

Dorien Plaat

Elizabeth Menges (115)

2011-04-25T17:26:00.002+02:00

-Self Examination-

Elizabeth writes:

My work explores the specificities of bodies, including my own, as well as the tension between examination and objectification in portraiture. As a female I have a heightened awareness of the body I was born into and its tumultuous history, from socially constructed perceptions of beauty and body image to individual battles with eating disorders, mastectomies and aging.

I am currently painting specific portraits of the women around me, eliminating all elements of narrative except for signifiers, such as jewelry, nail polish, underwear, bruises, scars, freckles and birthmarks that tell the story of the subject. How do we as women define ourselves in relation to our physical beings? It is not the exposure of so called 'flaws', but the uncomfortable confrontation of viewer and subject with a painstakingly honest image--and eventual self-acceptance--that motivates me to paint my subjects in this realistic manner.

Elizabeth Menges

Evita Weed (114)

2011-04-13T15:50:00.005+02:00

-the spring in the air series-

Evita adds:

Un dia más me quedaré sentada aqui
en la penumbra de un jardin tan extraño
cae la tarde y me olvide otra vez
de tomar una determinación...

Tropiezos incontrolados ...
futuros inesperados

[I'll remain seated here for one more day
in the half-light of such a strange garden
the evening falls and I forget again
to make a decision ...

Uncontrolled stumblings ...
unexpected futures]

evitaweed.tumblr.com
evitaweed2.tumblr.com
www.flickr.com/photos/evitaweed
www.flickr.com/photos/evitaweed2
issuu.com/evitaweed

Tara Verheide (113)

2011-03-25T11:35:00.013+01:00

-Simulacra//Simucation-
(Mother Tongue Project Panels)
Many of the early panels projected what I assumed to be the polemic between traditional female roles regarding creation, motherhood, nurturance and gender-based sexuality/responsibility as opposed to postmodern, media enhanced goals and ideals. I attempted to visually express that the solutions contemporary culture offers to this feminine dilemma are mass produced methods of appeasement and simulated nurturing.

-Finger of Fate-
(Mother Tongue Project Panels)

This panel is in dialogue with Mary Bernstein’s panel upon which a quote from David Bohm written “There is confusion between self-image and the body”. It also repeats the hand images seen in so many panels. The two elements combined appeared to me as the bloody truth.

-Preservation-
(Mother Tongue Project Panels)
This panel responds in combination to the numerous panels depicting fetus’s and Mary Bernstein's panel “To Preserve or not to Preserve”.

-Desire is Manifold-

(Mother Tongue Project Panels)
This was my original response to Dana Salisbury’s “Milk and Eggs”. Her use of what appear to be actual x-rays, breast-shaped, plaster forms, flute and straw communicated what I assumed to be a sense of anxiety, yet acceptance with a female role ... especially as it relates to medical necessity. I repeated some of the compositional arrangements of this panel and made a personal attempt to respond to its’ content.

Tara Verheide has made 15 panels for the The Mother Tongue Project. This artists' project has been informed by many sources, particularly the ideas of physicist and philosopher David Bohm. Bohm investigated the nature of individual thought and its tendency to defend its own assumptions. He experimented with verbal dialogue groups in an attempt to create a stream of meaning out of which would emerge a new understanding. Inspired by his philosophy, Mother Tongue applies techniques of visual interchange to stimulate and make visible the flow of the dialogue process. New panels are created in response to other artists' panels. For more info on Tara Verheide's panels shown here and for her other pieces visit the artist's gallery on Mother Tongue.

Tara Verheide

Jodi Bieber (112)

2011-03-23T10:43:00.005+01:00

-from The Real Beauty Project-

In the project statement, Jodi writes:

My new body of work entitled Real Beauty has been inspired by a number of events, the primary being my own life. My forties have brought a feeling of more comfort within my own skin than when I was younger even though my body shape has shifted dramatically. This project is an extension of a Dove billboard advertising campaign in London showing ordinary women in their underwear advocating and speaking up for Real Beauty.

Real Beauty Gallery and Statement

Jodi talks about the project in a video,

shot on occasion of the show 'Figures and Fictions'

at The Victoria and Albert Museum, 12 April – 17 July 2011.

www.jodibieber.com

Chelsea Coon (111)

2011-03-09T11:25:00.005+01:00

-Stardust-
acrylic on paper, 20 by 26 inches.

-Stardust 3-
acrylic on paper, 20 by 26 inches.

Chelsea writes:

When I was six years old the pink eye virus developed in my right eye. The doctor said there was nothing to be alarmed about and it was a very common virus. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months where I made multiple visits weekly to the office to check out the progress. The virus had been cured, but now there was a new virus present and my vision was decreasing at a rapid rate. Despite all the office visits and numerous variations of medications I became legally blind in my right eye by the time I was 12 years old. My cornea had completely clouded over with scared tissue. My parents did all they could, taking me from doctor to doctor to hear all the options we had. At that point surgery was not an possible until I was at least 18 years old. We talked to doctors all across Connecticut, and even went to Duke Medical Center in North Carolina to see a specialist. All their conclusions were the same; the only option was for a cornea transplant. When I was 20 years old I got the transplant. It was from a 48 year old donor who's circumstances of death were not disclosed to me. My cornea was cut out and replaced with the donors and stitched into my eye with 17 microscopic threads. The cornea transplant worked, and my vision has already increased dramatically.

I have always been extremely sensitive to light but completely intoxicated by it. The purity of intense white light has always left me in awe. My doctor always struggled to read the surface of my eye using his lights. He explained to me, my eyes are very sensitive to light, which is not just a result of the deformity of the scaring in my eye but also common in people who have blue eyes. The lightness of the iris of the eye allows for more light to pass through, whereas someone with darker eyes, say brown, does not have the amount of light passing through their irises. With this knowledge, my entire perception and amazement with light was given a sense validity. In my work I am constantly dealing with and addressing light. I paint the formations of stars which is the result of gas, dust, and time. I imagine the particles accumulating, forming this blinding light, and that this light exists as the evidence of the moment when the life of a star has been created.

www.chelseacoonart.com

Sara Bonaventura (110)

2011-02-25T17:12:00.008+01:00

-mantegna-

-shadow-

-She vanishes-

A 'mise en scene' of an impossibility, a virtual presence.

L'invisibile è essenziale agli occhi

Si natura negat...

(The essential is invisible to the eyes

It is negative in nature ...)

Sara writes:

The feminine body is never neutral; it is always marked out, claimed, and figured with language, always inscribed in a logic and history defined by men. In this men-written discourse, women are absent as active presence, but present as passive objects of representation. Though history cannot be re-written, it can be re-interpreted. Women may fill in some gaps, some silences, some vanishing points, live in left out parenthesis...

I often play with quotes or idioms, trying to disclose a new sense, implying also nonsense:
-The concept of sexual difference functions as the vanishing point. (~Jacqueline Rose)
-In the video’s text: On est fou que de sens, only meaning drives you mad. (~Michele Montrelay), rien à voir équivaut à n’avoir rien, nothing to see 'equals' having nothing. (~Luce Irigaray)
-The body is written, but can speak also, referring to l'Écriture Féminine where the female body is seen as a direct source of female writing. (~Ann Rosalind Jones)
-nowhere now here (at the beginning of the video) means in this hic et nunc, which is always ineffable.
-Towards the end of the video an inter-text says peek a boo-merang, referring to past and future space-time dimensions in an ironic way. Irony turns everything upside down and so opens up new perspectives, thereby presenting the video’s ending as a kind of hanged-woman game but also staying open ... To give no answers, but multiple possibilities to you, the other, the referent.
-And ‘the end’ is in a big bubble, a vanitas vanitatum; to remind us that life is death, but also that death is life. The death of language could be a new beginning; when wounds become scars, vulnerable but healthy again.

sara's youtube channel

sara on flickr

Francesca Kaplan-It's My Scar (109)

2011-02-22T10:29:00.007+01:00

Francesca writes:

When I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, I felt like my world was tumbling in. I had had a lot of sickness in my life, years of Hypothyroidism and Hashimotos, Crohns Disease and other peripheral ailments. But when I had cancer, things changed. This was something I had to deal with immediately and drastically. They had to remove my thyroid, and it left a short, but obvious, scar across my neck. It looked like I had been in a bar fight. Before I had the surgery I was sure I was going to want to hide the scar under flowing scarves, turtlenecks, and well-placed necklaces, but what I found is that as soon as it healed, I loved my scar. People would stare at it: it was in a particularly conspicuous location, and I would catch people looking down at it, puzzled, before coming back to meet my eye. I would touch it, happy to have a physical reminder of the experience I had just overcome. It has been 11 months that I have been cancer free, and during that time, the scar has faded. It’s still there, and obvious, but as the months go by, it gets lighter, the skin taking back the pigment, smoothing over the jagged edges. As it faded, I started to get sad.

Rachel Murawski and Liz Lessner, some talented and creative artists friends of mine, understood my concern. One afternoon, we were talking about this, and we decided it would be meaningful to memorialize the scar so that it never faded from my every day memory. They pushed me to make the first Scar Necklace. When people ask me what my necklace is, even though it very close to the original scar, both in location and in style, I simply say “It’s my scar.” There is something very powerful about celebrating something that to many is ugly, and should be forgotten. I don’t want to forget. Both because I live with the very real possibility that cancer is not a once in my lifetime possibility, and because I am proud of myself for living, and surviving, with strength and dignity.

itsmyscar.com

Rachel Kilback (108)

2011-02-17T16:41:00.004+01:00

-Bite Back-

-Dried Up-

-I Hurt, I Bite, I Bleed-

Rachel writes:

I use found items (from animal remains to plant life to garbage) to work through my struggles with chronic pain and illness. I have been battling severe pelvic pain for the last 17 years (since my first period). Things only got worse after the hysterectomy when I was 22. Guilt and suffering are prominent in my self-portrait pieces. It is a difficult thing to really look at yourself, discover what is underneath, and then portray that for all the world to see.

www.elleavuleloup.ca

Natalie Holland (107)

2011-02-13T11:00:00.003+01:00

-Metamorphosis-

Natalie Holland comments:

The process of working with the theme of cosmetic surgery inevitably brought me to a different train of thought relating to transformation of an image. It was connected to life-changing transitions. Any transition serious enough to alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments to your way of living and thinking, but a full-on metamorphosis. The woman who gazes at her reflection in a bathroom mirror contemplates her image which no longer reflects back to her in the same way. Perhaps the surgery has saved her life, as it can save ours; but there is no surgeon that can save us from the truth.

We live and die by our image. We keep our despair buried as we constantly gaze at ourselves in a mirror of our reality, but in the end, we’ll have to let go of everything. Not just youth and beauty, but of old age and, finally and against our will, life.

www.natalie-holland.com

Alessandra Tecla Gerevini (106)

2011-02-11T15:12:00.004+01:00

"Ombre nude" project

Alessandra writes:

A research on the body, about the body. Lights and shadows modeling the body. Sometimes they reveal, sometimes they hide. Glimpses at lips, hips, breasts, at the skin, the hair and feet. Glimpses that are telling an every woman’s secret life. The body represented in an everyday space, so familiar, so used to nudity. A body we have to show parsimoniously, because it’s an intimate representation of ourselves and our desires. A representation in the simple and pure way, helped by natural morning light, a light that doesn’t blind us but caresses our body and soul.

www.alessandragerevini.com

Maxi Matuschka (105)

2011-02-09T09:34:00.013+01:00

-The New Deal-

-Turban-

-Afternoon-

-The Hand-

-Beauty Out of Damage-

On the cover of The New York Times Magazine, August 13, 1993.

From Maxi Matuschka's Beauty Out Of Damage-artist statement:

After surgery and treatment for cancer in 1991 Matuschka-artist and activist who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1991-worked vigorously creating a large body of drawings and photographs that were used for posters in demonstrations and rallies across America, promoting breast cancer awareness. The images are still in demand: often published in scholarly and academic journals related to sociological issues on health, medicine, beauty and body image.

Matuschka made worldwide headlines when her self-portrait entitled Beauty out of Damage was published on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Magazine. This photograph generated 12 awards (including a Pulitzer Prize Nomination) and subsequently The New York Times received an unusually high amount of letters to the editor, ranking it as one of the most controversial covers in its history. News coverage on TV was extensive and this you tube represents a cross section of programs both the artist and photograph were profiled on.

www.matuschka.net

www.beautyoutofdamage.com

an extensive catalog and more information can be found on:
theartofmatuschkashop

Hannah Brancato, Kendra Hebel, Sarah Tooley (104)

2011-02-07T15:18:00.008+01:00

GET IT OFF YOUR CHEST, PLUCK IT FROM HER BREAST

an interactive performance that invites participants to explore & share notions of shame and the body.

by Hannah Brancato, Kendra Hebel, and Sarah Tooley

This interactive performance meditating on shame and the body confronts the unrealistic beauty standards contemporary American society imposes via representations of women’s bodies in the mainstream media. Artists Hannah Brancato, Kendra Hebel, and Sarah Tooley mesh the vaudevillian circus side show freak booth with the sterile, hierarchical, physician’s office, a setting in which they invite participants to explore notions of shame and the body, thereby bringing you Get It Off Your Chest, Pluck It From Her Breast. Participant/patients engage with the layered artwork on a visual, emotional, and physical level.

For stories that where collected during the performances over the past year, visit:

pluckitfromherbreast.wordpress.com

Jeannine Bardo (103)

2011-02-06T21:23:00.009+01:00

-Eve, Not of Adam -

Life Size. Paper Mache form with birch bark veneer,

birch seeds and naturally forming lichens, 2009

Jeannine writes:

My fascination with the human body, inside and out, informs my aesthetic. I find the sculpting process to be a constant dialogue. An experience with intuition, what cannot be seen, only felt and the physical. My work stems from how I find connections with myself, the human race and the world around me. Each work is not only a study of form, but a spiritual and emotional study as well. I use the female form to highlight our connection to the organic world and I hope to challenge the viewer to reconsider the role of women, not as objects, but as strong, beautiful and vitally connected to the world we share. I use non-traditional materials to create traditional forms to lead the viewer to question the underlying meaning and to reconsider and hopefully appreciate the hand of the artist.

-Eve, Not of Adam- I considered so many things when I was making this sculpture. I wanted her to be beautiful and reverent. Throughout the entire art making process I considered the role of women on Earth and humankind's relationship with the Earth. Whereas, we once worshiped the Earth and heavens, we now worship material things and Gods who resemble us. I was pleased to find my sculpture becoming Everywoman. She is old, she is young, beautiful/disturbing, black/white, strong/vulnerable…The roles of women are changing, but still remain the same. We are the givers of life, the source of blame, adored, victimized, strong, weak … I feel like my sculpture encompasses all of this as well as connecting us to our source of life, our Earth.

Lee Goldberg (102)

2011-02-04T11:34:00.005+01:00

Lee writes:

This series of drawings were done about body image and the beauty of the body regardless of size-shape-age, despite what the media 'feeds' the public ... especially women ... young girls are susceptible to media body propaganda from a very young age.
Allowing young women to see beautiful women of every size in a loving way would certainly be a beginning ... it may not happen in Vogue but artists can lead the way...

leegoldbergstudio.com

Mirella Salameh (ella) (101)

2011-02-03T17:21:00.005+01:00

Mirella (ella) writes:

I am a woman living in an oriental-patriarchal society. I often tend to draw my characters as a-sexual, but when I do want to give them a sex, I'd rather look at them as women. I have always been fascinated by the delicacy and sensitivity of a woman's body and face and how life and time surface on it. Through my work, I intended to show rather not the common physical beauty of women, but reflecting instead a certain inner state. Often represented in their intimacy, naked and dreamy, I love to relate them to nature. Thus, my choice of medium became abandoned wooden boards: pieces that have already endured time would add more authenticity to each of the results.

ellazplanet.blogspot.com

Kathrin Diestel (100)

2011-01-27T11:11:00.003+01:00

-oh sister-

Kathrin writes:

i made this little collage when my sister was institutionalized about two years ago.
she suffered from a fit of paranoia and was scared all the time.
all the doctors could do "for" her was sedate her, tranquilize her.
the saddest thing about all this is that some of her scares were so real and understandable.
she feels like a victim of capitalism and exploitation which of course is true for all of us to a certain degree.
after a few weeks she was sent home from the mental institution and one and a half years later the same thing happened again.
i feel so terribly sad for her and this picture should show my feelings as well as hers.

Kathrin Diestel

Bianca den Breejen (99)

2011-01-26T10:54:00.004+01:00

Bianca writes:

My work is the result of research into the psychological processes of the young female. The ways in which she experiences her sense, her body, her existence. It’s a deepening of understanding the boundaries between our physical bodies and our perception thereof, between our selves and our reflections. I am fascinated by the enigma of the human body, by the ways in which it could be made to seem an apparition. Space around me is the starting point for my work. I play hide and seek with space, to compare the fragility of the models body with the powerful presence of space and the objects present within it. My work forms a row of, sometimes voyeuristic, windows, each granting a glimpse into the canyons of internal life and death.

www.biancadenbreejen.com

Emma-Kate Guimond (98)

2011-01-25T21:27:00.005+01:00

-Auntie-

-Milk mamma-

-Pocketmom-

Emma-Kate writes:

big titty mama milky explores the archetype of the Great Mother in Her various aspects filtered through my personal psyche to create a sort of florid dreamscape of pop-up idiosyncratic symbology. The multi-layered work composes an aesthetical dimension that is at once cartoony, DIY, primordial and new age. The first aspect of the work is a series of small dolls. Made from conceptually rich materials such as hair, bugs, stones, felt and lace, the dolls refer to the feminine practices of craft, fashion and witchcraft. Modeled after Paleolithic and Neolithic sculptures, each doll exhibits primary symbols that engender our experience of Mother. Each figure is an expression of my own feminine archetypes and my potential to embody within my being the power of the Mother. I have imbued within each of them a character informed by their physical composition - their bodies, as well as their archetype.

Here are the biographies of the dolls:

-Auntie is a trickster who teases and brings chaos to all that is logical. She is the menace of the unknown. Her face is a drawing of my god mother and auntie, Francine who I consider to be a trickster herself. She is made from my hair, mylar and pencil drawing.
-Milk mamma is the symbol of nutrition. From within her vessel she bears unto her children the milk for growth and transformation. As she is faceless, she is purely this.... rock, button, thread, pillow stuffing, mylar and pencil crayon...
felt marker.
-Pocketmom is the perilous snatch. Large body and small face, she may swallow you whole... hair, felt, thread, mylar drawing with pencil.

www.tendermorsels-tendermorsels.blogspot.com

Suzanne Szucs (97)

2011-01-25T10:31:00.006+01:00

Polaroids from "Journal, In Progress" a 15 year, daily self-portrait Polaroid project.

Suzanne writes:

I decided early on in my artistic career that I would address issues of the body and identity in a straight-forward and non-glamorous way. Over the course of 15 years, I made a Polaroid self-portrait everyday, accumulating over 5000 images. To photograph myself, for Journal, In Progress has meant photographing all of my self, every type of moment – heartache and happiness, drunkenness and sex, excitement and boredom, beauty and repugnance – everything. Although I started the project as purely self-portraits, people came into it quite soon, because I discovered that we are more than single selves – we are also described by the people who share our lives. Though I did not set out to go there, I think the project captures the uniqueness of life.
Our bodies are huge – we live and eat and breathe through them. The notion of body and body image suggests and controls everything we do. We often become slaves to the corporeal, its pleasures and its disappointments. My camera captures the distortions that we place upon really looking at ourselves – can we ever truthfully see our selves? It also makes vivid our corporeal natures – we shit and spit, we bruise and tear, and some of us, quite a few, in fact, menstruate. As far as the body goes, my goal has always been to describe a real body – not one measured by the cover of Cosmopolitan – and I found that only my body would suffice – because to be honest, one first needs to be vulnerable.
The project has been realized as an installation of original Polaroids and as Volatile Bodies, selections from the project that emphasize body issues. After its completion the project was made into a movie, 15 years in 15 minutes, an excerpt of which may be seen on my website.

www.suzanneszucs.com

movie of the project "15 years in 15 minutes"

Catalina Uribe Percy (96)

2011-01-24T11:30:00.008+01:00

They remain an unhappily married couple and next to her,

dad has another woman he has a child with.

Most of the time he lives with that other woman.

I live in three different places and none of them is my home.

And even if I have everything I ever wanted, I'm still filled with empty gaps ...

-Images from the project 'Patterns'-

Catalina writes:

Patterns is a project in which I have been working on for about three years, it is a series of three illustrated books that narrate family stories based on both sociological and anthropological investigations and personal experiences. They all basically comment on the dynamics of the coastal-Colombian family and how the patterns that I follow and the men I normally like are a product of my grandmother’s and subsequently my mother’s history of having absent father figures and how this absence resulted in them choosing life partners that make emotionally unavailable husbands who go on to become absent fathers themselves. These three book take the form of a babushka doll (one book goes into the other) to portray the concept of familiarity and motherhood. My grandmother carried my mother, and my mother carried me.

Catalina Uribe Percy

Catalina Uribe Percy on Flickr

Claire Jackson (95)

2011-01-21T18:12:00.004+01:00

Claire adds:

The two illustrations were created during a period where i felt overwhelmed with worry about my mum who had cancer, my thoughts seemed to be constantly consumed by the cancer even though i was not the one who was ill. These images represent the amorphous almost parasitic nature of cancer on my mind and how it almost took over and occupied my every thought. The first is entitled 'overwhelming thoughts of cancer' and the second is titled 'cancer on my mind', the third image is a biomorphic abstract sculpture called bio poddlings, created from a smart plastic known as polycaprolactone or polymorph. This sculpture was created at the same time that I knew my mum was fighting cancer. I took it upon my self to research the microscopic images of cancer and other invasive viruses that take over the human body, etc and as well as microscopic images of the human body itself to create my abstract sculptures.

www.artistclairejackson.com

Eva Molenaar (94)

2011-01-21T17:27:00.005+01:00

Eva writes:

I am researching my womanhood and my place as a women in this society. I have always worked with the human body and am focusing lately on women in particular. I was focusing on women from the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and the Amish. I found myself attracted to the women, and the old way of living for women, and was wondering if this was something I wanted for myself? That choice would be frowned upon from within my social background and by my peers. I am still working with this project, I haven't found the answer yet, I am curious how other people handle growing up as modern independent women.

Eva Molenaar

Katie Cassolino (93)

2011-01-21T11:04:00.006+01:00

Katie writes:

My work is a collection of drawings and paintings on paper narrating body as a subject and repeated theme. The drawings suggest exaggerated flowers and growing figures in surreal landscapes. The work consists of intuitive line drawings that create clusters of organic fragments. As physical beings we are constantly evolving in ways that are both inexplicable and understood. Much like the mysteries of our complicated biochemical make up, these drawings explore surreal biomorphic forms. Through ambiguous lighting and patterns that suggest growth, these drawings serve a result of my moving meditation. As an installation they create a world that lets us transcend to the place, which we are closely connected and mysteriously unaware, our bodies. This work is about our world, our bodies, and the possibilities for growth. Life can be found in the whimsical spirit of objects and nature. These works are a personal interpretation of that.

Currently I have been working on a body of works on paper creating images of biomorphic surreal landscapes. In my last exhibition I have installed a grouping of 62 drawings from the last three years all created around the time of my diagnosis as a diabetic. Some created intuitively through premonition and others powered by angst of an illness inside I was aware of.

Cassolino.com

Ellen Wetmore (92)

2011-01-19T22:52:00.009+01:00

-Checking for Doneness-

-Carried Away-

-Nursing with Eels-

-Melt-

The sculptures are all 2 feet tall, except Melt, which is 15ft long..

All executed in the last 2 years.

Ellen writes:

"The Joys of Motherhood" is a set of sculptures and images exploring the maternal body and experience in a surreal way. Pregnancy and motherhood involve a bizarre physical transformation. Reports Wetmore:

“I have experienced extreme physical deformity, profound emotional delirium, intense hunger, and fatigue. This is normal, even celebrated, but not necessarily enjoyable. I am an ambivalent mommy actor and work out some common anxieties through a variety of media.”

On view, a new series of figurative works exploring now familiar themes in Wetmore’s exploration of the fecund female body. The most ambitious of these is "Melt", a monumental reclining female figure with a dissolving midsection that formally recalls the work of British sculptor Henry Moore. Wetmore’s interpretation of this classic pose is sharpened with gross narrative and anatomical details. The model embodies the failure of female fecundity; she passively contemplates the goop into which her body has dissolved. She is covered in a slippery, self-lubricating graphite, as though dipped in crude oil, both lovely and toxic. Other sculptures include "Carried Away" in which the pregnant belly swells and lifts off from earth, stealing away its owner; "Checking for Doneness" in which an impatient, expectant mother opens her stomach early to see how it's going; and "Nursing with Eels", a reflection on the physical demands of infant nursing.

ellenwetmore.iwarp.com

Sibyll Kalff (91)

2011-01-19T12:25:00.015+01:00

-black rose tattoo-

-my myoms 1-

-my myoms 2-

Blue Haiku
by Mike Marino

Charlie Parker played the blues, Janis Joplin sang the
blues, with rhythm, so blue blues, jeans are blue, eyes
are blue and skies are blue. Some name their dogs ol'
Blu, and Sinatra was old eyes of blue. Seas are blue,
moods are blue, berries are blue, spring however, is
new, not blue. Hues are blue and the news is blue,
even chimney flues can be blue. Food is blue, at
times, if not red, and sad is blue. Few are blue, I am
blue, you are blue, BLUE IS!

Kerouac wrote the blues, road blues, highway blues,
and highway booze. Keseys cuckoo's nest flew, one was
blue and flew over the blue to the other side, green.
Haikus are blue, 17 sylable blues, or 17 sibyll blues,
a beautiful hue, her blue.

World War Two was blue, all war is blue. Whales are
blue, some, and art can be blue and paint can be blue.
Life and death are blue, and shirts are blue. Pirate
crews are blue on oceans blue. Flags are blue and
police are blue, cruel blue. Revolution is blue, Che
blue, Ho Chi Minh blue, Berlin Wall red then blue,
Fidel blue, Chicago Seven blue, Chechoslovakia blue,
Hungary blue, Gdansk blue, Tianamen Square blue, Lenin
blue, Lennon blue, Marx, Karl and Groucho blue, Bessie
Smith the Queen blue, Robert Johnson the King blue,
jazz is blue, fusion is blue, hearts are blue, true is
blue...
Blue Is.....

sibyllkalff.com

Martina Korošec (90)

2011-01-17T10:45:00.008+01:00

Home-made 1/5

Forest

Martina writes:

Different emotional states and settings in surroundings influence on my body movements. Body movements change when I am exploring familiar indoor environment, such as rooms in a home in comparison to outdoor environment – forest.

What I do is illusion which enables me to release something that I cannot keep for myself only.

martinakorosec.com

Martina Korošec's Photoblog

Cathy Nolan Vincevic (89)

2011-01-13T12:51:00.008+01:00

-Womb-

Acrylic, oil pastel, pencil, black and colored...on cardboard.

-A Book About Death, Chapter 2: My Womb-

Cathy writes:

womb
I watch the graceful swirl of her being
tucked so inside
(the body fits its parts so neatly)
arms arched holding gentle flare
of egg
You drove me so, you quickened
you twitched with my ecstasy
ecstasy not complete without you
blood and bone and blood
you were my child
and your instincts
basic
driven
became woe
a promise unfilled
a space left empty

Cathy Nolan Vincevic

Gabriella Mirollo (88)

2011-01-09T10:17:00.004+01:00

-self-portrait from the series 'Fade to White'-

Gabriella writes:

I am a poet and photographer originally from NYC and now living in Somerville MA. Leaving behind my preferred position on the “safe” side of the camera, I recently began a series of self-portraits called Fade to White in which for the first time I am literally facing the enemy: an autoimmune disorder called vitiligo that for the past 25 years has caused irregular and unsightly depigmentation of my skin on various parts of my body, but is most extensive on the one place I can’t conceal from the world: my face. Vitiligo is the reason what few self-portraits I have done up until now have been with a camera in front of my face, in shadow, from behind or at a distance. It is also the reason I began reclaiming my skin ten years ago by getting tattoos, and really giving the world something unusual to look at, on my terms! While my own journey from shame to pride is for the most part complete, I hope in continuing this series to further explore and challenge standards of beauty, mine included, and let fellow sufferers of vitiligo know that it’s okay to show their faces.

Gabriella Mirollo

Joanne Beaule Ruggles (87)

2011-01-07T09:26:00.008+01:00

-Free Fall-

-Sleepless in San Luis-

-The Dilemma-

Joanne writes:

Throughout my career my goal has been to communicate the human condition through my artwork - whether I am painting or drawing. Struggling to capture the feel rather than the look of my subject(s), to capture the soul rather than the surface - my art functions as a mirror that reflects our humanity - my humanity. I want that reflection to be large, revealing, passionate, and even raw. Pleasantly skillful work does not interest me, not asking enough from the viewer or exposing enough of the creator. I prefer work that records an honest struggle - an intense and often an awkward search. Along with traditional artist's tools, I employ a wide range of unorthodox implements including twigs, primitive dowel pens, trowels, and abrasive materials in order to create the expressive marks needed to carry the emotional charge I desire within a certain work. My artwork is often initiated by building a chaotic field of colorful paint, abstract ink mark, and collaged shape because I enjoy making order out of apparent disorder. Entering this uncharted territory - full of risk, full of potential - provides me the exhilarating creative environment that I seem to require at this point. I find this process has metaphoric relationship to life itself - we get the life that is delivered to us. We don't earn it any more than we deserve it. We just try to make sense of what comes our way, to do the best we can. This IS the human condition - my condition. I have walked with cancer. I am a survivor. I am finding my way.

Joanne Beaule Ruggles

Francien Krieg (86)

2011-01-04T12:25:00.007+01:00

-marked-

-double bed-

-laying body-

Francien writes in her artist statement:

In the studio of Francien Krieg a glass is displayed with bird skulls and a small fetus in a jar. It is noticeable that transience of nature intrigues her. In the work of Krieg the theme of transience concentrates on the naked body of elderly women. Krieg paints the naked woman unpolished and realistic, as a pure human being. The beauty of imperfection becomes clear in her raw, poetic art and has the capacity to touch the observer. Krieg always painted human beings. At first she was intrigued by the form of the human body, but gradually her fascination with the texture and the colors of the human skin increased which is expressed in her realistic style. She tried once to show the inner side of human beings, but that did not appeal her.

'I think the inside is bloody and nasty, while the outside is interesting for me. The wrinkles and varicose veins of the elderly are to most people an illustration of imperfection, but to me they depict beauty. According to me, a smooth, polished skin is less interesting then an aged skin. Painting the unpolished, aged skin is a way to express the inside.'

The fascination for the human body started when she became aware of the strangeness of her own body when she took a shower. She took a good look at herself and thought 'what a strange object is this!'. This experience stimulated her to paint her own body.

'Your own body is familiar and strange at the same time. For me it is bizarre that on one hand I feel comfortable in my body, while on the other hand I have no awareness of what is going on inside. Even medical science is unable to understand the inside of the human body completely.'

Another fascination of Krieg is the way females are portrayed in the media. She is annoyed at the way the media create an idealized picture of women. As a counterpart of this idealization she aims to show natural and unpolished women. One of the purposes of Krieg is to stimulate critical questioning of the definition of beauty instead of a groundless acceptance of an imposed definition of beauty. Personality characteristics as openness and honesty also contribute to outward beauty.

(translated from a text from Hanneke Wetzer)

Francien Krieg

Christine Muller (85)

2010-12-29T15:51:00.007+01:00

-De la place pour une fleur -

73x54 - 2010

-D'une coccinelle à l'autre -

73x54 - 2010

-Une envie d'autre chose -

100x70 - 2009

Christine ajoute un dédicace/Christine adds a dedication:

Hommage aux Amazones:

Rescapées d’un naufrage
Trempées par les orages
Elles ont tourné la page
De l’épuisant voyage.

Elles ont dans leurs corsages
De nouveaux paysages
Elles ont dans leurs bagages
Un infini rivage.

A Annick, Thérèse, Chantal et tant d’autres...

Tribute to the Amazons:

Survivors of a shipwreck
Drenched by storms
They turned the page
Of the grueling trip.

In their bodices
They carry new landscapes
In their luggage,
An endless shore.

Dedicated to Annie, Theresa, Sue and many others ...

christinemuller.fr

les amazones.fr

Abha Iyengar (84)

2010-12-27T20:09:00.004+01:00

-the body depicted-the young and the old-

Abha writes:

I did this simple drawing to illustrate how the body changes over time from full curves to droops, and how we have to accept the changes and love ourselves as we are, as we change. We may not always be happy with the change. Growing into full blooded womanhood is exciting but not easy, and the change from that to the freckles and spots and sag of old age is even more difficult. We have to accept one fact alone, we can never be divorced from our body. We have to love it, nurture it, accept it and grow into it, even as it grows unyielding and difficult. The realization that 'this is me', this body is an integral part of me, is the first step to love.
I have had difficulty in accepting changes in my body~ when I was pregnant, during times of illness, as I grow older, yet, I have always loved it. it is not perfect, it is mine. It survives and carries on with life.

This Body Is Me

This body, my lover
Who stays with me when all else leaves
In whatever shape it may be
It will never let go till the end.
This body, whom I have loved,
Sometimes nurtured and often ignored
So taken for granted
Till it said, I grow weary of you.
I am heavy, creaky, disjointed, painful,
Yet I am supporting you.
I grow weary with you.
I see the body that I love
That loves me
Tire of being filled with me.
Yet we trudge on
We have no choice.
We live with each other, with a certain fondness
Knowing just where it hurts and where
We can still find joy.

© ABHA IYENGAR, 27th December 2010

www.abhaiyengar.com

Poetry Collection, 'Yearnings'.

Liz Davidson (83)

2010-12-16T12:04:00.006+01:00

-The ground of my being-

(1996, from the exhibition "The Sweetness of Truth the Body Reveals")

Mixed media, 67 in H hx 75 in W x 75 in D

Liz writes:

Our bodies, our home, our sanctuary, our ground, our landscape, our story; our soul made visible. Using sculpture, installation, mixed media, college, printmaking, artist books, video, poetry and sound, I explore the richness of the metaphor of the body; the place we call home on the earth. The age old questions of who we are and what are we doing here are examined (although, unfortunately, ultimately not answered ). The mystery of the body, our layers of skin that keep us separate from one another, our longing to be part of the whole, our light, our darkness, the idea of metamorphosis, of transformation: this is the material I work with.

www.lizdavidsonartist.com

lizdavidsonartist.blogspot.com

Sharon Rose Dadang-Rafols (82)

2010-12-13T10:34:00.004+01:00

-Habohab-

This diptych is a mixture of oil and acrylics.

Sharon writes:

This painting of mine called "Habohab" in Filipino Visayan Language which means "Sharp Attack" belongs to my Series of Painting exhibited last July 2009 entitled "Babaye" or "Women". This work is inspired by women's struggles and pain from bodily attacks such as harm and abuse in cases of domestic violence and rape. I do a lot of Art workshops for healing young women victims of rape and violence here in the Philippines, some kind of Art Therapy, and in a way helps me to overcome some of my personal struggles and pains in my workplace.

Sharon Rose Dadang on fb

Shadi Rezaei (81)

2010-12-05T12:46:00.009+01:00

-Self_Postrait No.1, "Untold Things"-

- Self_Postrait No.2, "Untold Things"-

- Self_Postrait No.3, "Untold Things"-

Shadi writes:

I was born on May 6th 1986 in Iran & started my artistic expression with drawing. Since 2005 I've been Studying Graphic design in Art University of Tehran. I started working as a freelance graphic designer since 2007. My recent project is about aspects of the modern human and also on contemporary human life that is impacted by traditions, with special focus on Persian Typography. (Designed in Bijan Sayfouri's workshop)

shadirezaei.com

Pam Patterson (80)

2010-12-02T10:27:00.007+01:00

Pam writes:

A Flash of the Real: Situating a Performance for Change

Sometimes I can hardly use human language to tell how I feel... 'If I were a dog, I'd be shaking and trembling.' Animals don't use words; their bodies speak for them. . . But I am not an animal. I am a human being, an articulate one at that, who is challenged to find words to apply to sensations I've never had before, challenged to find meaning and stability despite a changing body. I'm caught in a relentless metamorphosis.
Barbara Rosenblum in Cancer in Two Voices (1996,166-67).

Susan Sontag writes of the photographic image’s power to haunt us - to bring us to an understanding of the fragility and mortality of human life. However, she faults photography for lacking narrative continuity; it remains fatally linked to the momentary not able to produce ethical pathos in us or, if so, only for a moment.

As a multi-media performance artist, how do I work with this? How do I, as disabled woman communicate my experience of transition and of pain? Why are my bodily changes a matter of public exposure? Can my strategies control/limit/expand the perspective(s) for others?

Bodily change and its accompanying pain, as presence and as content, are not always evident on my body or in my art − the marks of my mastectomy hidden, the swollen joints covered. Artists, such as Orlan, document surgical procedure-as-choice to question our refusal to acknowledge pain. While others, such as Hannah Wilke, photograph their failing medically tortured diseased bodies, exposing our inability to comprehend and effectively respond to her’s and others suffering.

I ask, “Can the experience of the artist be experienced by the viewer and hence facilitate cultural change?” I turn from assuming that images of surgery and illness inherently have the power to portray/project pain, or politically charge the issues and transformative possibilities. Rather I move into a transparent discursive practice intending to expose abjection, reveal narrative and create distance.

Through the “performance” of the image, I capture a “flash of the real” (Barthes), to time “the decisive moment” (Cartier-Bresson) and suspend the ultimate act(ion)s of tension/pain and possibilities (Barba). I explore the insertion of interpretation in the captured moment, multi-media strategies to charge the moment, narrative or counter-narrative to structure memory, and time-based art’s potential to engage time, space and context in encouraging self-reflexivity.

click to view images from a Cellu(h)er Resistance a Body without Organs?

References:
Butler, J. (2005). Photography, War, Outrage. Modern Language Association of America (V.120, #3) May, 822-827.
Kuppers, P. (2007). The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Art, Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.
Kristeva, J. (2003). Approaching Abjection. In Amelia Jones, The Feminism and Culture Reader, London/New York: Routledge, 389-391.
Lugones, M. (1990). Playfulness, "World"-Traveling and Loving Perception, in
Anzaldua, G. (ed.) Making Face, Making Soul Hacienda Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Colour, pp. 390-402. San Francisco: Ann Lute Foundation.
Oughton, J. (2008). A Journey through/around Pam Patterson’s Cellu(h)er Resistance : The Body wth/out Organs?, Toronto: Fado Performance Inc..
Rotman, B. (Online August 1, 2008) Gesture or the body without organs or speech. http://www.wideopenwest.com/~brian_rotman/gesture.html.
Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Wolff, H. (2008). (trans. Nicholas Grindell). The Tears of Photography, Grey Room 29, Winter, 66-89, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Wolff, J. (2003). Reinstating Corporeality: Feminism and Body Politics. In Amelia Jones, The Feminism and Culture Reader, London/New York: Routledge, 414-425.

Jane Zweibel (79)

2010-11-30T16:27:00.004+01:00

-Misfit #4-

-Self-Portrait as Midlife Mermaid #4-

Jane writes:

Misfit #4 is from my 1997 "Misfit" series, a series of self-portraits in which I wrestle with pantyhose. This work is about the struggle with body-image and weight, and on a deeper, metaphorical level, about both physical and psychological conflicts and struggles.

Self-Portrait as Midlife Mermaid #4 is from my 2009 series "Midlife Mermaids". In this work, I depict myself through the lens of both fantasy and reality. I show the fact of my aging upper torso and face, and the fantasy of my lower mermaid body.

My most recent and on-going work consists of what I call “stuffed paintings”, which are sewn, stuffed and painted sculptural objects. The idea of a “stuffed painting” subverts the more conventional notion of a “painted sculpture”. The materials I use in these pieces include canvas, cotton fibers, thread, glitter, and acrylic and oil paints. My work attempts to push and blur the boundaries and conventions of sculpture and painting, and of traditionally male dominated “fine art” and female generated “craft”. It also takes a progressive and challenging approach to figuration and narrative in art.

With my “Stuffed Paintings”, I start by creating figural silhouette stencils. I transfer the stencils onto canvas. The pieces are hand-sewn and filled with cotton. The resulting soft sculptures allude to childhood stuffed animals and dolls. They also suggest cartoon figures, spiritual icons, and effigies. These pieces are paradoxical, in that they both invite and repel touch. I make oil paintings on the façades of each piece. The illusionary paintings play off of the sculptural forms. The paintings are based on collages, over which smaller stencils are superimposed, honing in on odd perspectives/juxtapositions. The original compositions are altered and collage/montage-like, inventing new meanings, and non-linear narrative possibilities.

A major theme in my work is an on-going exploration of issues of identity, in particular female identity. I use self-portraiture as a subject through which I can express and conceptualize meaning in a chaotic world. My “stuffed paintings” reveal images that reference physical and psychological states of being and, senses of self, inherent in the human condition. In my work, I am interested in the interweaving of private and public realms. My content is culled from a range of sources: personal and collective history, current events, mythology, urban life, family, and nature. My hybrid personas embody the conflicts, losses and connections between female and male, and childhood and adult, lives.

In my current “Midlife Mermaids” series, I examine issues of female identity, gender, body image, sexuality, and aging. The faces and upper bodies of each mermaid consist of self-portraits expressing a variety of emotional and psychological states, including confrontation and contemplation. Within the shapes of the lower torsos and tails, I paint images of the mysteries, wonders, and wreckage of the sea: coral reefs, sea plants and flowers, which also reference both HIV and cancer cells and female sexual and reproductive organs, and the ruins of sunken ships. Opposites of vulnerability/power, beauty/ugliness, growth/decomposition, and fact/fiction are contained and expressed in these works. My “Midlife Mermaids” are, at once, portraits of a woman artist and individual, and of mythical sirens capable of luring and captivating men. They are simultaneously personal feminine images, and images emanating from a collective female (and male) imagination.

Jane Zweibel

AnnMarie Tornabene (78)

2010-11-29T15:55:00.008+01:00

AnnMarie writes:

I have been photographing myself for almost 20 years now in various ways but it all started with body acceptance as I was overweight and grew up being ridiculed for it. I wanted to show myself and the world that I was fat and I was beautiful. As time went on though, I stepped back from my focusing on just my body and began to photograph myself in narrative ways dealing with other issues with myself. Now having lost significant weight and dealing with a new body including skin that has been aged and stretched, I am slowly dealing with it again but only in video have I tackled it head on.

My Skin-Self Portrait Video #5

My Skin 2-Self Portrait Video #7

My Skin 3-Self Portrait Video #8

www.annmarietornabene.net

Thomasin Dewhurst (77)

2010-11-24T13:04:00.004+01:00

-Drawing 2-

charcoal and white pastel on paper, 30" x 22"

-Drawing 3-

charcoal and white pastel on paper, 30" x 22"

-Emergence 1-

oil on paper on board, 30" x 40"

Thomasin writes:

My work grows out of the self-portrait in that I use myself as a model for many of my works. My paintings and drawings are not directly self-portraits; my body is merely a reference and a vehicle for developing ideas and emotions. Painting and drawing my own body brings my focus onto the beauty of light and dark within the contours of human flesh, which is not necessarily socially desired beauty. For me, sagging, stretched flesh and cellulite are as mesmerizing to draw as is the strength of muscle, and emotion expressed through the posture or gesture of the tensed / relaxed body. What I appreciate about my physical self when making my drawings and paintings is not what I value and, in fact, what I would disguise, when going out into society. The two ideas of self are disparate and unreconciled.

www.thomasindewhurst.com

Sara Zin (76)

2010-11-22T13:16:00.006+01:00

-two paintings from the series 'Contemplation'-

Sara writes:

I chose Contemplation as title/theme because at the time I was going through a lot of transition in my life and was questioning a lot about my identity and what I wanted for my future. (I am adopted and had come back from a trip to Korea in which I met my biological family. I also had graduated around that time and was wondering what to do with my life in general).

Through painting this series I was able to figure out what I wanted (or at least what my next steps were) and rediscover who I am, so this title was more a comment on my frame of mind.

I think that all art is in some form therapeutic and healing. When I visited this blog that is the feeling that I got.

Sara Zin

Gaela Erwin (75)

2010-11-18T10:44:00.009+01:00

-from the 'eye shadow series,' pastel self portraits-

Gaela writes:

This series of self-portraits that I call my "eyeshadow series" pokes fun at my conditioned reflex to make myself beautiful with the help of a little make-up. I am surrounded by images and media that tell me aging is a sin and that I will be held in high esteem if I am young, beautiful and sexy. Since I am in my late fifties, I have lost most of my currency by those standards. Yet, I find conflict in the act of denigrating this message with the occasional guilty desire to conform by prettying up in any way possible.

In the studio, I am captivated as I work from the reflection that stares back a me from the mirror. How do I represent those furrows and lines that crisscross my forehead? Sagging skin, wrinkles that are ever-more deeply etched and a neck that now clearly display the muscles and tendons that lie beneath provide new pictorial challenges. No amount of eye shadow can create the wonder of painting skin with a history. The resulting self-portraits portray aging skin and beautiful aqua eyeshadow that gains a frightening potency with each iteration.

Gaela Erwin

Meredith Monk (74)

2010-11-16T11:43:00.007+01:00

Meredith Monk performs 'last song' from her cd impermanence live at Joe's Pub, NYC 2005. Words by James Hillman.

On impermanence:

This newest multidisciplinary work features a joyful and poignant look at change and the essential experiences we all share, from “…what we leave behind, to our fears and our celebrations of life…”.

“In a way, making a piece about impermanence is an impossible task”, writes Meredith Monk in her booklet note. “One can only brush upon aspects of it; conjure up the sensation that everything is in flux, everything constantly changes, we can’t hold onto anything …”

listen to Meredith Monk discussing 'impermanence' on NPR

meredithmonk.org

Samira Abbassy (73)

2010-11-13T15:01:00.007+01:00

-Matriarchal Trinity-

This painting was shown at the Incheon Women's Biennale in Korea last year.
(click image to view larger)

Samira writes:

In this triptych, the Matriarch is examined as a phenomenon which combines biographical, cultural, psychic, chemical and metaphysical aspects. The Divine/human dilemma.
This mode of representation incorporates the events and narratives of a life into the body of the figure, biography as biology. Their specific identities are woven, embroidered and drawn into the patterns of their dresses. These clues tell who they are: what they feel. A biography as written into the body and onto the dress.
The Ultra Marine blue color that unifies the piece, is a deliberate imitation of the precious Lapis blue of traditional Medieval Icons of the Virgin Mary. The icon was not only the object of worship, but was made with the most precious of materials, giving it alchemical/transcendent qualities. This color also has unique spacial qualities and represents the infinite, the universal, also implying the process of creation itself.
I wanted to subvert the image of the Icon as the archetype of the Western Canon and bring to mind the Byzantine era when Christianity was embedded in middle-eastern culture.
I am especially drawn to Sacred/Religious art from all faiths and denominations, as I found that religious imagery and its language in general, (whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu etc) provides the visual clues and a way into these psychic/spiritual states. The language of Sacred Art seems to be more successful at conveying metaphor and describing the metaphysical aspects of being human. The figure is recognized as an archetype rather than an individual.
I tried to open the field to sacred iconography from all faiths (Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist etc) and fuse the disparate mythologies and traditions, in an attempt towards the creation of an iconography of hybridism.

samiraabbassy.com

Shizu Homma (72)

2010-11-12T10:25:00.004+01:00

Shizu writes:

I create movement based performance work, heavily influenced by butoh.

I grew up in Brooklyn ; am a daughter of impoverished Japanese immigrants, who were born the year after the WWII ended. I have never studied nor met with Hijikata or Ohno, yet I am a stray branch on this butoh tree, and dancing is partly an exorcism of ghosts from an early life of violence and fear that I was born into. I dance to reconcile my inheritance.

My dances are usually a combination of choreography and structured improvisation, though recently I have been collaborating with new music composers, with whom I improvise solos.

Dance and live performance is the most anthropomorphic art form; Yet I am interested in the challenge of moving non human. At other times I like to interrogate the human condition by searching for movement that exaggerates the behavior of our species.

I am not interested in creating art as a form of escape. I want to create work that is infused with love for the earth and all that are hurt or sick, or scared, to lessen the need for sentimentality and affection, so we can rise up in reality.

-under the bruckner-

-branchmonkey-

-south bronx grey-blue-

-walk on water-

more of Shizu Homma's work on:

razorfromherboot.tumblr.com

Clarity Haynes-The Breast Portrait Project (71)

2010-10-31T16:02:00.027+01:00

Clarity says about the project:

The Breast Portrait Project is about portraits of the female torso. It started out of a self portrait I made in my mid 20's when I was feeling really uncomfortable with my body. I did a portrait of my torso as a way to confront those feelings. I found out that making the portrait did work to make me feel much more comfortable and accepting with myself.
I started doing these portraits for other women, which turned out to be a meaningful experience both for the models and for myself. I want to get beyond our judgment on what is beautiful, beyond that mental place of what our fixed ideas (on beauty) are. I want to make each body look so beautiful in its portrait and then I want the viewers to get that beauty too. To me it's exciting to portray women's real bodies which are often invisible in our culture.

Clarity talks more about the project and the upcoming show in February in NYC in the video on kickstarter:

clarityhaynes.com

bportraitproject.org

the breast portrait project on tumblr

Suana Verelst (70)

2010-10-15T12:34:00.006+02:00

"dissection", an analysis of the self...
(terracotta)

Suana Verelst

Linda Molleman, Chantal Molleman (69)

2010-10-12T18:08:00.029+02:00

Photos of Chantal Molleman who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009. The photos were taken by her sister, artist Linda Molleman.

Chantal Molleman writes:

IT...

Vulnerable, destroyed body and mind, I feel like shit all the time.
What does IT want from me ? Why me ?
I’m not myself anymore, IT doesn’t belong to me, I don’t want it anymore !

Diagnosed with breast cancer, MAY 2009.
One large huge breast is a purple foreign object. It doesn’t fit with the rest of my whole person, just hanging there like a big prune with an eye on it, a dead eye with no soul, staring at the rest of my private parts, bald and useless, no hair anywhere !

I’m submitted to twelve chemo’s and thirty three radiations, ‘Gamma rays’ entering my deep soul and burn the flesh away of my once nice breast, a rose blossom, what a shame...
My entire being changing aggressively, I’m very much in pain, very angry at IT and I can’t stop it.

FOR NINE MONTHS I SIT IN A BALLOON ALONE, NO ESCAPE POSSIBLE.
The world outside not existing because it is not my world anymore. I’m powerless... so horrible aching inside and out, and yet I’m searching for the meaning of all this.

Dead sick smoking my lovely cigarette which I cherish deeply, my one and only escape, my only moment for a while, making me happy and ‘ normal’ for a few minutes. My cigarette... How stupid can I be?

Look, the mirror tells me how beautiful I am, still am, bald, yet I can’t see it.
Do I have to surrender, accept and suffer?
Fading concentration, loss of control, I cry it out. Help me ! The mess inside kills me slowly.
There is no hope in my head, my Picasso coloured breast burning continuously like a monster... I want to die !
There is my lovely cigarette, my only companion, killing me too.

With a little needle I try to prick my balloon, find a small hole, how tiny it may be and run away from my captured body. Yet, I do not find the way out to escape from this filthy shell.
No concentration. Perhaps another cigarette? Yes ! What the heck, I am dying anyway.

This fat monster with beautiful blue eyes, crying for attention, credibility and pity, and yet I don’t want it. Screaming for hope and understanding,any encouragement to survive.
Many questions in that bald head of mine crawling around in my brains for so long already. My cigarette ... not real, not logical. I take another nicotine escape.

I’m so tired, burned out and please let me see my grandchild one day. My beloved son who I adore and means the world to me; Please...
Another chemo, number 12 and I say NO ! Enough now, I can’t and will not have it. No more poison.
My body and mind refuse it, and I believe in myself, no struggle for live anymore. Final countdown.

Little things, a flower, the sun, nature and above all my music, my operas.They are all there for me, just for me.
My cigarette.

Regaining power inside by meditation, little things come back to me. Small things that make my life worth living for, appreciation of futilities, I see it all in a different way now.
I’m becoming a master at putting life into perspective.

Don’t take IT so hard on yourself !
My balloon ruptures, I fly away from my cocoon. It’s a renaissance.
I slowly accept the person. I become a beautiful person for myself and other people.
I see again. Eyes were wide shut !
I rejected IT, the ugly Duck, and if IT strikes again, so it will be.

But I’m still here ... with my cigarette.

CHANTAL

Chantal Molleman, TEXT, October 2010.

Linda Molleman, PHOTOS, March 2010.

www.lindamolleman.be

Anonymous (68)

2010-10-12T17:55:00.004+02:00

HPV

I got the news a week ago –
The high-risk HPV test came back positive.
My ob/gyn didn’t say anything more
Except that I should return in six months.
No consultation; no explanation.
Just that I needed to return in six months.
They were very rude and unsympathetic.

Said diagnosis didn’t include
Any education about its implications.
Knowledge alone is not empowerment.
I had to learn more for myself.
The Internet is rife with falsehoods & misunderstandings;
Misinterpretation and scary stories reign supreme.
Researching HPV online, I was horrified by what I found.

As I learned more I was fraught with worry.
HPV causes all kinds of cancers;
Many don’t have obvious symptoms and go undiagnosed until too late.
HPV is considered a common STI, but I haven’t “sowed my wild oats”
And my only sex partner (in both skin contact and the actual act)
Is the man that I married – he is all that I have known.
But that isn’t true the other way around.

Women are told that they have no way of knowing where they got this.
Some are even told that they don’t need to inform their male partner -
That it won’t affect him and he doesn’t need to know.
He can obliviously keep spreading it around
Without the knowledge that he is doing so
And without ever being blamed for anything.
This leaves him and his future loves / conquests at risk.

Men are rarely acknowledged as carriers
And are not tested to see if they have this.
Double standards demonize women
For any sexual encounters, and shame them.
Once shamed, they don’t talk about it.
It becomes a private matter and their own dark secret,
Their own personal pain, problem and worry.

So the attitude still prevails:
Boys will be boys,
And girls are solely responsible for their own sexual encounters
Whether they get a STI or get pregnant.
Some view HPV as punishment from God for promiscuity.
They imply that cervical & other cancers evidence that punishment.
But why am I being punished for something I didn’t do?

Those who tested positive can feel alone
Even while knowing that 50 – 80% of women are estimated
To have been diagnosed at some point or another.
I have yet to meet another woman who’s gone through this,
Although I haven't talked with many out of my own shame.
I feel dirty, tainted, and undesirable and am fearful for my health and future.
Education is sorely lacking; both women and men deserve better.

~Anonymous

The HPV Support Network:
anymothersdaughter

Inne Haine (67)

2010-10-08T16:45:00.003+02:00

Inne writes about this cartoon:

For girls, growing up has never been easy. These days it seems even more complex. There are plenty of role models around and often girls lack guidance in shaping their identities. The beautiful, photo shopped faces we know from advertising have become the norm of who we should be as women it seems. Young girls are being rushed to grow up physically, so they can step into the vital, sexy, consuming world of the ‘perfect’ adult shown in the media. How can their minds keep up? How can they see through that? That’s why in the storyline, I allow for the little girl to be just that, a little girl …unaffected by this kind of inner conflict between who she is and who she ‘should’ be.
I remember from my childhood how strong the influence of the group is on the individual. You better try hard to fit in, or so it seems at first. After leaving school, that peer pressure falls away. Suddenly you can be yourself. Who’s perceived as ‘weird’ in school, may very well be special and unique ...

Inne Haine on YouTube

Annemiek Mullenders (66)

2010-09-28T18:10:00.007+02:00

-battered-
(triptych)

Annemiek writes:

After some time of feeling unwell, one day I just lost consciousness and woke up three weeks later in the ICU at the hospital. I was on life support and hooked up to many other devices. I couldn’t do anything and didn’t understand what was going on. My body battered: a large untidy scar where my chest was cut open and tubes and wires going in and out of it. What happened was, I had a massive pulmonary embolism and multiple cardiac arrests, CPR, lack of oxygen causing brain damage, a 7-hour emergency heart/lung surgery with complications and organ failure and residue damage to my muscles and nerves as sequelae. So I was told. Nobody expected that I’d ever wake up at all. I'm (still) confused and in a lot of pain. After a difficult rehabilitation, two years later, I’m trying to find out who this new person is that I became and what I still cán do with all my (new) limitations. Gently, carefully I’ve started to paint, draw, cut, paste and I’m finding a way to process it all.

This triptych shows my body with its scars like faces showing the emotions I went through: surprise/incomprehension - confusion /anger – acceptance/surrender.

Annemiek's mail art call&blog

Aunia Kahn (65)

2010-09-28T09:18:00.004+02:00

-salutary absorption-

Aunia writes:

When faced with fears I tend to be drawn directly into art, to get out the fear, frustrations and the overall feeling of lack of control – I have control with my art.

My family has suffered many Cancer scares, and many deaths associated with the disease breast. Brain, breast and kidney are to name a few. Breast Cancer runs on both sides of my family, and we carry the gene as well.

My gynecologist asked me told me at 30 I was going to have to go get a mammogram for the lumps she found in both breasts, due to her concern and the breast cancer risks in my family. I was devastated at the news, the fear of “maybe something was wrong with me” and the “what if’s” that come along after watching my mother go though Breast Cancer in her early 40’s and to be fighting stage 4 Bone Cancer in her late 40’s. (She is doing well)

I went home and created this piece of work as I waited for my mammogram appointment, which was a week later.

Everything came back normal, and I am healthy and fine but I am much more conscious about self breast checking and making people aware that Cancer, in any form can happen to anyone, even the most healthy, young and bright. So we must take care of our body, mind and spirit so that we do not give Cancer or any other illness a place to materialize and grow.

auniakahn.com

Maureen Piggins (64)

2010-09-21T20:40:00.010+02:00

-Back and front of Maureen's postcard for A Book About Death, NYC, 2009-

Maureen writes:

I created several works and poems about my mother's illness and death from breast cancer, and consolidated much of this into an artist's book entitled "Echo". Many images represent the body (mine) in psychological portraits, while others are more literal in the interpretation of the body (my mother's) during illness. The two images above were exhibited in postcard format for the first "A Book About Death" show at the Emily Harvey Gallery in New York.

-Roots-

The image above, "Roots" is a work that represents my simultaneous connection to death and life. My body is between these two states, grief connecting me to my deceased parents and strength and joy to my son. This image also appears in postcard format in the "Ray Johnson and A Book About Death" exhibit. I've included the back of the postcard here as well, which deals with my father in the later stages of dementia.

maureenpiggins.com

Jennifer Weigel (63)

2010-09-20T17:14:00.008+02:00

Images from The Life Blood Exhibit/Menstruation Art:

-Blossom-

-ComingOfAge2-

Jennifer writes:

Why make art about menstruation? Menstruation is still a taboo topic among many cultures. Many women are taught to be ashamed of their bodies and feel dirty when they are menstruating. There are still many myths surrounding menstruation, and both normal and potentially life-threatening conditions are too often not discussed, leaving individual women to wonder whether or not anything is wrong with their bodies whenever they experience any changes (sometimes even including menarche at the onset - many a girl has learned from a school nurse that what she is experiencing is normal). But menstruation shouldn’t been seen as something dirty, deviant or wrong - it is a natural function of the female body and provides evidence of women’s ability to carry children and to give birth to new life.

By drawing attention to the female body and to the menstrual cycle, artists are able to comment on this life-giving aspect of womanhood and to celebrate and/or show their discontent with their own bodies and cycles. Also in exploring this theme, artists are able to offer commentary on their experiences, confront stereotypes & assumptions and educate one another about things that are too often left unsaid. Here are some images of a couple of my artworks celebrating menstruation, including an altered dress called Blossom and an assemblage entitled Coming of Age. Please feel free to look at some more of my art on my website and to check out Life Blood Exhibit, a show about menstruation that I curated in St. Louis and hope will travel nationally.

jenniferweigelart.com
The Menstruation Series

lifebloodexhibit.com
lifebloodexhibit.blogspot.com

Elena Cortés (62)

2010-09-01T19:18:00.007+02:00

-AURA-

Óleo sobre lienzo, 81 x 60 cm (cada uno)
Oil on canvas, 81 x 60 cm (each panel), 2010

Elena escribe, Elena writes:

Presento y represento un cúmulo de situaciones con la mujer como personaje principal, que intentan gracias al diálogo entre espectador y obra, una posible definición de la identidad propia de la mujer y su erotismo.
Una pintura basada en la sutileza, que sugiera más y que describa menos. Una pintura de manchas y fundidos que nos traslade al conflicto entre desaparición y presencia y que seduzca con su simple esencia indefinida.

I present and represent a combination of situations with women as main characters, who try through dialogue between viewer and work, for a possible definition of the identity of the woman and her eroticism.A painting based on subtlety, suggesting more and describing less.
A painting of blots and of fading that moves us towards the conflict between presence and disappearance and that appeals by its simple indefinite essence.

www.elenacortes.net

Monique Donckers (61)

2010-08-30T11:02:00.008+02:00

Monique writes:

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2008 at the age of 54 ( I was about to throw a big birthday-party as my year of birth is 1954, but this turned out differently). I had a mastectomy and chemo and radiation treatment.

I had many difficulties getting used to the one-breasted-body, and the boldness. It was hard to deal with the person in the mirror, so I started to collect wigs in all sorts of colors and shapes, and took photographs of every transformation of my body during the 8 months of treatment.

I am a sculptress really, but as I was too sick to do the heavy work, I tried to make some oil-paintings from the photographs that I took.

So this is what you see here, a story of a short period in my life, where the body changed drastically, and where I became estranged from both my body and myself.

I am happy to say that today I feel re-born, this whole experience has made me very much more aware of ‘life’.

www.moniquedonckers.be

Cristina Taniguchi (60)

2010-08-30T10:19:00.005+02:00

-Dimension of fear-

80x180cm, oil on canvas, 2010

CROW

Crow. I get distance.
The clouds dark beyond timeless
Sphere.
Obliterated wishes.
I screw life.

Crow it is you I find
Hang yourself.
Do it for I cannot wait to see
Your eyes frozen
for a thousand times.
I keep denying life, for I …dead.

Crow. Dead I am for multi-cycles
of life span.
Fitted against oddities.
A lonely soul
Who dreams of timeless
Memory that consoles
No boundary of sanity

Crow. You could have accounted
the beginning of light and dark,
of the scariness of space,
of how it feels to float between ages,
and… the river of time.
My river of time goes here and now.

Crow. Nowhere could I set my feet
Grounded
For there is nothing to grip.
If there was a soul it should be mine.
But on my own I comprehend that exit
is an illusion
My soul does not response against this
truth.
Crow.

©Cristina “Kitty” Taniguchi

Heather Horton (59)

2010-08-27T09:59:00.009+02:00

-Self Portrait, Acute-

-Self Portrait, Poignant-

-Self Portrait, Renewal-

Heather writes:

The body is a landscape constantly in motion. Like tectonic plates shifting our skin, bones and beings are always on the move. I aim to capture a moment of that transition, be it painful or joyful. I seek to look into my own eyes when I work on self-portraiture and examine just what is underneath it all, literally. The layers of paint really are like skin...they are organic and never straight...always arcing, always softening, always pushing ahead or receding back. It is those continually fluctuating moments that intrigue me the most and beckon to be caught on canvas...

Heather Horton's Blog

Heather Horton on Twitter

heatherhorton.com

Sejal Patel (58)

2010-08-23T20:19:00.008+02:00

Red, Purple, and Blue (2003-2004)

Red, Purple, and Blue is a performance-based photo/video installation on the implications of color: culturally, socially, and psychologically. In Indian culture, red transforms the life of a girl, as she is surrounded by the color red on her wedding day, bringing her love, strength, prosperity, and welfare. Despite my American citizenship, as an Indian woman it is expected that I marry and the marriage be arranged. The concept of arranged marriage is not foreign to me, but its familiarity does nothing to limit the horror behind it. The progression from Red to Blue is a remedial realization of self and its capabilities after experiencing the absence of self and identity. I use the colors as a means to initiate a conversation. A conversation about my life’s dreams, fears, and confrontations. I see the three colors as shades of my different moods or the illustrations of my emotional stance through the different stages of my life.

Click RED to watch the video

patelsejal.com

Andrea Bonfils (57)

2010-08-15T18:53:00.005+02:00

-Free Flight-

mixed media, encaustic

-Garden Nude-

oil painting

-Pink Nude-

oil painting

-Blue Mood-

encaustic

Andrea writes:

My work is reflects an appreciation of the balance of nature and how we are intertwined. Our ability to heal and effect change, is in my view, synonymous to our relationship with the natural world.

www.andreaartstudio.com

Irit Rabinowits (56)

2010-07-27T15:06:00.006+02:00

-from the series 'Blue Paintings,' Untitled-

-from the series 'Wood Painting,' Untitled-

-from the series 'Naive Painting,' Garden of Freedom-

Irit writes on her site:

Irit Rabinowits's art deals with the process of defining a sexual identity, starting with early adolescence in the 'Blue Paintings' series, which are painted in cold and reserved colors conveying a sensation of detachment and isolation. Through the revelation and enjoyment derived from the beauty and sexuality of the female body in the 'Wood Painting' series, which are warm-color paintings drawn on wood. And finally in the 'Naive Painting' series which simply celebrates love within an intimate relationship in a colorful and joyful manner.

Irit Rabinowits

Moira Antonello (55)

2010-07-18T20:27:00.008+02:00

-cuerpos-

moiraantonello.com

Michelle DeMarco (54)

2010-07-15T10:32:00.009+02:00

-self portrait from the series about caryatids-

Michelle writes:

I believe we are living in and through a growing, changing situation which opens up towards new possibilities and that is transformed as it develops. The process is part of the meaning making and most assuredly part of art making. We are not separate from our physical experience of life.

Here is a snippet from a series of work I did about caryatids: (harmony and creation)

In as much as I am a part of nature I can be consciously involved in this evolution, which is to say, in my own self definition and reconstruction. Through my direct connection to the earth I reclaim an intimacy with the mystery and find harmony in creation. Beauty exists through this harmony, it is in me and I am surrounded by it. Beauty is a greater sense of grace which calls me to lean in closer. Beauty is not a thing it is a conversation which includes the world I touch - the world where I live and work. It includes the human body, the earth body and the body politic and with this new definition is delivered a compassionate ethos. An ethos that remembers how we cherish each other and move into beauty.

michelledemarco.com

Susan Brenner (53)

2010-07-06T17:05:00.044+02:00

3 pieces from the series "This is History ... that is not over."

-Posing-

1990, oil on canvas in 2 panels, 73 1/4"x77"

-Beauty Secrets-

1991, oil on canvas in 2 panels, 50” x 102”

-The Reproduction of Hysteria Cruxifiement-

1991, oil on canvas, 50"x72"

Susan writes:

Issues related to women’s identity and their bodies have long been a concern of mine, and this concern has sometimes manifested itself in overt ways in my work. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s I was particularly interested in the language of gesture, the pose, within figurative representation.In 1990-91 this interest led me to create a body of work, focused on hysteria, using late-nineteenth century medical photographs as visual source material. Three works from this series are shown here. You can see additional pieces at www.susanbrenner.net

This is history…that is not over includes two installation works, a series of paintings, and a set of drawings with accompanying text panels. This work offers a sardonic view of hysteria as a defining metaphor for femininity. It draws parallels between the world of contemporary advertising and the nineteenth century institutions that produced and reproduced hysteria as a spectacle. It is built around a series of late-nineteenth century photographs of women institutionalized for hysteria at the Paris hospital la Salpetrière under the care of Dr. Jean Martin Charcot. They are disturbing and compelling images, presenting a picture of woman as an exotic other, an irrational being, a victim, simultaneously powerful and powerless. I appropriated these images, layering and juxtaposing them with fragments of historical and contemporary materials, with the intention of raising questions about the nature of identity.

susanbrenner.com

Birgit Huttemann-Holz (52)

2010-07-06T16:41:00.006+02:00

-Burn in-encaustic
(With numb hands- straight to the heart)-

self portrait, 31.5x58", encaustic 2010

Due to repetitive back problems (herniated discs), I suffer annually in spring from major pain and immobility. This year it triggered a cervical radiculopathy resulting in a numb right hand and the need to look up not down (otherwise I am in serious pain). So I needed to alter my work position and my pace of work. Of course I can not stay away- and might as well have prolonged my suffering and healing process. But that is life as an artist... a self consuming flame???

-Inscapes-

The video narrates the philosophical/psychological question of identity and how this manifests itself in body language/ portraits.

www.brightstroke.com

Marianita Faraino Stevans (51)

2010-07-02T15:41:00.003+02:00

-Stammered Breath-

36 x 30, acrylic on panel.

Marianita writes:

Breathing ... breathing in, breathing out ... simple, automatic ... from our first breath, we take for granted this unconscious act. We experience joy, we breath rapidly. We experience pain or sorrow, we breath in slowly, with a deep healing cadence. We are sustained by breath.

I have asthma. I am a painter who can not work with oils when an attack has flared. Suffocating, I pull out the acrylics and, with ribs in a constant vice, I draw on the strength of womanhood and bring forth an image of determination ... exhaling fully my voice, my thoughts, my being ... inhale again and I am sustained.

Marianita Faraino Stevans

Bibiana Padilla Maltos (50)

2010-06-23T10:20:00.005+02:00

Throughout my life, my body has changed and I have several scars to prove it, both physical and emotional.

My first surgery happened only days after I was born. I had an umbilical hernia that I can barely see the scar of now, but when I was a kid it sort of had the shape of the Sun "would you like to see my Sun?" I remember asking my family. My feet didn't have enough arch so I wore little boots (which I loved!) but sometimes I didn't pay enough attention when running and fell, hitting my head, so I have a bulky scar in my lower skull that I showed proudly when, years after, I used to shave my head. Once I had to get a tetanus shot because I got hit with a tennis racket and opened my eyelid, I have a tiny scar for that. Years after I realized how lucky I was, if I had been hit lower I could have lost my eye!

I have a scar in my ankle and my knee for ironing my uniform skirt on the floor (don't ask why, I still don't know what I was thinking). Being asthmatic I'm always concerned about the air flow, the weather, the pollution, and very -VERY- familiarized with hospitals, nurses and blood works. I had oxygen therapy (inhaler therapy?), got poked for blood allergy testing more times that I can count, got pinched with cortisone shots more times that I can count, up to the point that nowadays if I need to I can explain someone how to do it for me and feel confident that they will do it right or do it myself (what a weird comfort is that?). I can also tell the people in the lab which of my veins is the good one, and give them alternate options if they screw up.

I never really check my breasts for lumps and such. I remember the one day that I did check, I couldn't find anything until, wait a minute! There it was!!! I ran to the doctor, and said it was the size of a lentil. We didn't know what it was, so he told me to wait and come back a month after. What if it is? What if it isn't? A month past by and my lump had grown to be 3 centimeters. Surgery was scheduled. My surgeon left me a very fine scar that no one can tell it's there.

I have always had very small breasts, but to me they are beautiful because they are mine. I didn't know what would happen and thinking I might have one removed for good I started making casts of it; after that I started filling them up with silicone; after that I thought I needed to put colored marbles as lumps. Results were back, and it was not cancer. I kept the prototypes, which I can't find now. I was lucky, again.

In my everyday job (you know, the one that pays the bills) I had to do audits. While traveling to visit a vendor, my car got out of control and smacked against a semi-truck. It was a very Hollywoodesque moment. Car and semi-truck got off the road. Car in flames. Legs not responding. Crawling out of the car to ask for help (luckily I was conscious). I had knee surgery. Again, I was not only lucky but blessed, how many people alive do you know who've had accidents hitting semi-trucks? I cannot name a single one. I couldn't walk for months and when I did I got the coolest cane. I have 2 centipede scars in my knee and started to tell people what a bad-ass I was that I even have scars to show (as a joke, of course).

It is funny women don't talk about their woman problems. Once you go through one, a lot of them tell you they've been through the same or something similar. Last year I was pregnant. My first pregnancy-doctors-visit I was told it might be more than one baby. I was huge. I came back the next day for an ultra sound. And there it wasn't: only my heart was beating. And there they were: at least 5 fibroids the size of a grapefruit. I had an obvious miscarriage and got a treatment for fibroids explained to me. I don't remember being sad, I remember wanting to be over all that and ready to go. That didn't happen. I got an injection treatment which was an induced menopause, believe me when I say I cannot wait for NOT to go through menopause again. The five big fibroids got reduced to garbanzo size and were removed in two surgeries. Lost the pregnancy. Lost fibroids. Lost bone mass. Lost my mind. And now I am ready to go.

The last three events have left the biggest scars. I can't even show them, but they are there.

padillamaltos.blogspot.com

Maeshelle West-Davies (49)

2010-06-17T08:50:00.007+02:00

In 2004 Maeshelle wrote:

"frigive release" is a series of 6 photographs exploring suicide.

Upon hearing the words, "I’m not ready." I thought I was going to die. My body shut down. But I lived. Then I just wanted to die. Even 6 months later I am wrestling with thoughts of not wanting to live. I’m scared to kill myself. I don’t know if it would improve things. I just know that most of the time I don’t want to be here or anywhere. I just want to be with him. without him I can find no existence. I feel as though a portion of me is missing. It’s the portion that holds joy, laughter, motivation, happiness......the good things I used to be....my soul.

So, at the moment death seems very appetizing. That’s why I chose to make the photos pretty, like a fashion magazine. My emotions keep trying to sell it to me. I could escape this never ceasing pain. I could stop being a drain on my friends and family. My head keeps stopping me from buying it.

The images are designed to draw you in and then to disturb you. Kind of wake you up and bring you back to reality. Suicide is the cause of more deaths in Germany than car accidents. In the States it ranks as one the higher than murder. And yet, it brings such shock. It is a taboo subject. Feeling isolated is one of the biggest triggers of suicide. Because it’s something not to be discussed, you end up feeling even more isolated because you can’t talk to anyone about it. When it is mentioned, the looks say it all. I’m not trying to normalize it or promote it. I’m just trying to show how it can look like the answer. On the contrary, information shows that women in particular, more often than not, fail, leaving them with new traumas to deal with. Not all of these traumas are physical. There’s also the stigma to deal with, some of it external, but a lot of it internal. How could I be having these feelings? As my father said to me, "That’s not an option," thinking that would stop me. Perhaps for him, it isn't an option. I never thought it would be for me. All he did was reinforce years of conditioning of how damaged I am. After much searching, I now know that wanting to die is really just wanting to end the pain. When the coping mechanisms aren’t keeping up with the pain, sometimes suicide results. If someone comes to you and says they want to die, part of them wants to live. This is the part that’s calling out. Sometimes just admitting the feelings can give some strength to the coping department.

Even when I was working on the project, I tried to hide these feelings from myself. I suppressed them, finding loads of other reasons why I had to do these particular images. One of the reasons was I was killing off the part of me that feels. The part of me that loves and wants to be loved. I know I will never find another love like this. So I figured if I could kill this part of me, it wouldn’t hurt so much. I could pick up what was left and carry on with my life....strong in my art. If I am truthful, it is the knowledge of how very special and strong this love is and the hope of his return that keeps me alive.

All of the images were shot in my sublet in Berlin. I have left the place where people know me. I can choose to tell or not to tell people about my depression and they can accept me or not. I am in limbo.........effectively homeless......having lost everything.

-frigive release-

-jump-

I have never wanted children......until this man. With him it seems an extension of our union and perfectly natural. Also having children seems part of life in Denmark. In my culture i saw it as an end to life, a burden......something to hold you back......something an artist couldn’t afford. This is shot from my balcony. The, whatever that thing is that kids play on, is a constant reminder of what I’ve gained and lost. I have difficulty walking down the street and seeing happy families. My gut wrenches when I see a father and child, knowing he will never play with our children.

The fallen leaves are not only the obvious......oh, how the mighty have fallen, but symbolize the oncoming winter... hibernation my only respite. I am unable to hold a job because of the lack of concentration and the inability to handle even the slightest stress..........symptoms brought on by the depression. My loss of self and my constant thinking about how I could have foreseen and prevented this........guilt, another symptom...........keeps me from interacting with people for any period of time.

-overdose-

Of course the most glamorous is the overdose...just ask Marilyn or Judy. One Sunday I was walking down the street and I came across a pile of glass from a car windshield. It was glistening in the sun, like diamonds. I knew then that was what I should vomit. I later read that when you od on Tylenol, you throw up green, luminous vomit. You don’t die, you just pass out. Someone finds you, rushes you to the hospital. You awake, having changed your mind, only to discover irreparable organ damage. For 5 days you and your family get to sit around and suffer until you die. How’s that for an exit?

-stab-

I shot this on the fourth month anniversary of the breakup. I had fully intended to pamper myself. I got a bottle of wine, some flowers, and some special food. All of it was left untouched. I felt I had to do this piece. Open communication was the cornerstone of our relationship. On the wall are texts sent during the last year. Such beautiful words. Such comforting, uplifting, empowering words. I love you. Jeg elsker dig. Just three of the many words that meant so much........and then from nowhere...knus..... Danish duality. A warm greeting of rubbing cheeks........I used to love it because it was so intimate and yet so innocent.........and it doesn’t exist in my culture......then a new meaning..........to crush. Words that had been so wonderful now turned to stabbing pain. The object I am using to stab myself is a part of a wind-chime made from metal and ceramic. Each piece has words sent to me in text. It used to hang in the bathroom window. When the wind would blow, his words were renewed. It always brought a feeling of warmth and a smile to my face when I heard the sound. Now it is in the sublet bathroom. Some pieces are on the wall, placed so as not to touch. Others in a glass vases. It lies dismantled..........silenced. the particular piece reads rest of my life.

-choke-

The same scarf, given as an anniversary gift, that used to keep out the cold, is now choking the life out of me. The items I surrounded myself with to close the distance now only magnify it. I can’t put them in a box, as suggested. I can’t snap out of it. I can’t accept that he is just young and doesn’t know what he is doing. I can’t stop my heart from feeling. Each heartbeat flows with warmth and love. If unbroken, the love would fill the veins and nourish the body, but instead broken, it floods out, poisoning all it touches.

Gift means both marriage and poison in Danish.

-wrist slit-

Again the gift and the poison. In old times and even today in some cultures, it is customary to bleed off an illness. Many times bad blood was replaced with new in an effort to cure. The candles glow in ritual while the clean lines of the bathroom tiles mimic the clinical nature of a surgery. If I could I would cut myself and bleed this poison, the bad blood gushing out in ribbons, adorning a wonderful present, my life back.

maeshelle west-davies

Angela Fama (48)

2010-06-13T16:41:00.011+02:00

-Mirrorface 09: Angela-

Angela writes:

Almost 4 years ago, just after my 30th birthday, I was driving my black '76 firebird, when I got T-boned by a bus that resulted in nearly killing me (a mm away... quick coma, fractured skull and a brain injury to boot). I am a photographer, who had been straying from my real love (ART!), driving to an editorial shot for a designer friend, focusing on the world of commercial, so far from that real love... same pot, yet at the heart of it, totally different soup. I also ended up having my left shooting eye, the one right where the fractured skull was underneath, blood glued shut and close to being totally out of commission. Needless to say, it was a little shocking when I woke up in a hospital with a neck brace and a lot of people (family, friends, nurses) all standing around in a half moon staring at me... also needless to say, after a long, slow, mellow recovery, mostly all in my head (aka brain injury), the accident resulted in serious life changes for me. Thankfully and luckily enough, more in my mind and heart than my the body and it's abilities. I ended up with a scar on my forehead, a few other facial scars that are barely visible and everything working just fine. Brain injuries are a strange event, they take a long, non-visually aided (no broken foot to watch heal or explain the pain), time and in the beginning, it's like being a really smart kid while you're brain is busy healing. You can stand, talk, move, hang out at home but you might not remember the intelligent, revealing conversation you just had and simply don't have the brain energy to care for all the walls and conceived realities we build up around our lives, our minds are too busy healing to get into our heads and twist and create messy ideas or concepts. It took me over a year to get back at things fully and since then I have been switching my focus back to my first love, art. This decision resulted in showing at my first "real" gallery, Elliot Louis, and since then, my current body of work, Mirrorface, which I shot while still taking things "easy" in recovery, has just shown solo in 2 collaborating "real" galleries (Grace Gallery and ON MAIN). Thanks to my shock, I have the pride and confidence to say again, I am an artist, first and foremost. We only live once in this world and every second counts.

Angela Fama

Summer Geraghty (47)

2010-06-13T16:26:00.008+02:00

-From the Project: "Self-Test Necklaces I, II, III", Self-Test III-

Multi-media installation

Summer writes:

I wish not to be myself; not human, not made of skin, not static and dormant within one mind and body set.

My pieces are not imagery; they are equations of my personality. With varying media, I explore divergent areas of my psyche. My works are the manifestations of my history, thoughts and theories. Religiosity, abuse, abjection, identity, stages of life and ephemerality are sectors that preoccupy my mind. All my pieces are forms of portraiture; they emanate from personal experiences and then broaden with others’.

Self-Test Necklace III materialized from a Hirudotherapy session with ten leeches. Documenting both the session and the aftermath was vital because the notion of healing is as important as the act of endurance. The singularity of the experience invoked the understanding that any living organism requires sustenance and that I was happy to become the host. Wishing to renovate the parasitic nature of humanity by transferring my position to that of the host, I allowed the leeches to drink from me. As Hirudotherapy is used for medicinal purposes, the act of bloodletting is necessary for the rejuvenation of new blood. As I allowed this to transpire, my thought process was to document it as the beginning of a cathartic process, one that resulted in a five day photography record in which the bites and bruising healed. The main aspect to abjection, for me, is the catharsis that emerges from it.

Summer Geraghty on myartspace

Sally Piller (46)

2010-06-09T15:29:00.004+02:00

-Wrist Surgery-

moku hanga woodblock print

Sally writes:

I always had very strong hands and love to use them in intricate ways. I am a printmaker by trade and my specialty is making woodblock prints. I've been making them for about 35 years. Hands are so essential to the life of a human being, particularly an artist. I took my hands for granted and after hammering away and using hand pressure to create a self portrait woodblock print, they started to go numb, then came searing pain at night. I had given myself a nasty case of carpal tunnel syndrome. I know, nothing to compare to some of the life threatening experiences of other stories in this series, but it surprised me that I had been so careless with a part of my body that is so integral to my identity. Both hands were affected, not surprisingly, because when one got tired I'd switch to the other. I've always been somewhat ambidextrous. So I had surgery on one hand, the right, after which they both improved. I guess this happens. Nerves are funny things. My hands still go numb though. And they are not nearly as strong as before. Artists! Don't take your hands for granted!

This moku hanga woodblock print is called "Wrist Surgery". The broken feather represents my messed up hand.

Chris Aerfeldt (45)

2010-06-08T16:16:00.006+02:00

'Red, red heart' from the series 'Silver threads and golden needles (cannot mend this heart of mine)'.

About the series, Chris writes:

For some time I have been intrigued by small 17th century Dutch genre paintings, such as those by Vermeer, Teniers, van Mieris, and Dou, depicting women in the home. I have been mulling over the meanings and stories behind these paintings (by men) of beautiful yet moralising pictures (of women).
This entire series 'Silver threads and golden needles (cannot mend this heart of mine)' this piece is a part of, can be traced back to one small painting that I saw in the Musee Fabre in Montpellier, the Enfileuse de perles (which translates as ‘Female pearl threader’) and is by the 17th century Dutch artist Frans van Mieris. In it we see a young woman in the privacy of her own boudoir, sitting at a table looking towards us whilst threading a string of pearls, with her maid in the background. Each time I see it I am transfixed by the woman with the ambiguous expression on her face, trying to work out what is inside her head.
I started doing some research ... In French the verb enfiler (to thread), which is at the root of enfileuse, has a double meaning, and also refers to the sexual act. The eye of the needle is called a chas in French, which when spoken sounds exactly like chat (cat). This can be extended to chatte (a female cat), which is the French equivalent of the English ‘pussy’. So threading pearls may not be as innocent as it appears.

www.aerfeldt.com

Ann Marshall (44)

2010-05-30T17:06:00.008+02:00

-Maybe Baby-

Pastel and paper collage
on paper
44 x 60 3/4

Ann writes:

Within the last year, I was in a freak accident where a tree fell on me while I was walking on the sidewalk. It hit me from behind and broke several of my ribs, vertebra, and blew my hip out of its socket. I found out later when examining what remained of the clothes the paramedics had not cut off from my body, the soles had been blown off my new boots -- such was the force of impact. It was the most traumatic painful event I’ve ever experienced. I will spare you the details, but I’m lucky to be alive and still have the use of my legs.

While still in the hospital, I noticed a sign for art therapy on the wall in my room. Bored and looking for comfort, I asked what was available. The night nurse told me to inquire with the day shift, but instead I asked my boyfriend to pick up some Playdoh next time he went out to run errands. Curiously, I didn’t want to draw. I’m an artist by profession and sometimes the self-pressure to perform is too acute. I was a broken person now. I didn’t feel like trying and then being disappointed. Instead, I was looking to escape and forget. Before personal ambition set in, I had spent many fun afternoons as a child unselfconsciously playing with clay on our kitchen table, amused by my ability to bring even the crudest figurines into existence only to flatten them later with a rolling pin. That was the speed I was on now.

After my boyfriend returned, I spent the afternoon making silly sculptures in between naps (I was pretty heavy drugged) and lined up my creations on the tray beside my bed. I asked any visitors to bring clay in lieu of flowers and entertained everyone with my resulting creations. They made me happy in painful circumstances.

I soon went home but was highly incapacitated for a month. I was in a lot of pain. My greatest efforts went into physical recovery and the first very short exhausting walks gradually became longer. I was soon able to dress myself again--slowly, though for several weeks I had to use a grabbing device to reach anything on the floor. Eventually, my boyfriend no longer had to help me out of bed and I could shower by myself again. As I improved, I became bored with my confinement. Movies and television provided a glimpse into the outside world, but passively watching made me restless. I needed actual activities. I baked and cooked what I could. I hobbled down the block on crutches. I continued to play with clay. Surprisingly, the very crude sculptures brought me a happiness my professional work had been missing for some time. I posted them on Facebook in an album entitled “Percocet and Playdoh” and they were wildly popular with my friends and family. I made a mental note to myself.

Eventually, I healed enough and returned to the studio, I tried to remember to carry over the joy I had found in my small housebound projects into my real work. This was the constructive result of my accident, at least as pertains to art: have fun. You did once, and then all the adult pressures piled on. I try to appreciate and celebrate my subjects, and create work that brings pleasure to the viewer. Interest, joy, and excitement are contagious. I do not find them lesser goals.

Ann Marshall

Helene Ruiz (43)

2010-05-19T18:17:00.013+02:00

-AND I WILL-

-miscarriage-

-my resurrection-

-carry on-

Bread Crumbs
The piercing of

dried

hearts

by lubricated oracles

in attempt

to condemn

and

judge

because

the

bread

has become

million

dried

crumbs…

once

these crumbs

were

the bread of you

and

soon

your bread

will

be these

crumbs.

3/14/2010

Helene writes in her artist's statement:

Art is my passion, religion and salvation. It is my way of surviving and coping. I paint what I feel, when I feel, Although most of my works are considered “surreal” in style by many, my work is actually my “reality” and my perception and creative expression of my life and my interpretation of my environment and the lives of others around me. There is no “correct” way to conclude the meaning behind my work as it is meant to reach inside of you and for you to decide how it relates to your soul, your life, your experiences. I love to paint, I cannot imagine my life without it, nor do I think I would have survived without it. Drawing and Painting is my true “freedom” as I can say whatever I want without restriction, and every painting began with a drawing first. This is how I can express myself when words are at a loss. Sometimes, there are no words that can describe my reality. The stories behind my works are many, I would love to hear how my works may relate to your stories.

Helene Ruiz

Kathryn Ashill (42)

2010-05-18T11:33:00.012+02:00

‘If it is a social object, the body can be redefined,

its forms and functions can be contested

and its place in culture

revaluated and transformed’. (1)

I personally identify with my body as a ‘social object’, which can be used as an instigative tool for social intervention. After having to revaluate my body as a result of significant weight loss I turned to performance as a means of reconnecting with my physicality. My work is focused on the desire to explore my surroundings and other people through making corporeal connections.

Having grown up in a typical Welsh household where there was a lack of filial tactility I crave physical affection. This feeds significantly into my work as I aim to gain a physical bond with the participants in the performances. There is a strong theme of care running through the body of work: I have been publicly dressed (Dress Doll 2006), publicly washed (Tawe Performances 2006-2008), and hand fed by my family (Feast/Gwledd 2008).

Intimacy is fostered through these actions. My latest piece Sws (Welsh for ‘kiss’) involved participants applying red lipstick and then coming to kiss me. I became shrine like and relished the physical contact. As a ‘social object’ my body can be used as a tool for pushing the reserved British public to embrace more often.

(1) R. Betterton, An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body (London, New York: Phaidon 1996) p.13

Photo credits to: Paul Avis, Daryl Corner, Rhiannon Guven and Michelle Huggleston.

Kathryn Ashill, Sws
Kathryn Ashill on CultureColony