RitualIn a society where consumerism has become our realm of worship, I want to infuse art with its original spiritual and ritual function. My paintings are intensely worked until the surface has crevices and areas that appear both destructive and regenerative. My work attempts to ignite the ritualistic flame that transcends time by creating works that are structurally iconic, and whose process is based on obsessive detail and endless repetition. The intensity, and obsessive process, allows me to interweave my collective unconscious and life experiences.
The media in my work includes harmonizing layers of paint and translucent bees-wax, as well as other materials. Expanding one’s perception of things and altering context has been the goal of my using materials other than paint in my work. For instance, beeswax symbolizes healing, and is applied in its natural, flesh-like color that gives the work layers of protective skin.
The progression toward threading quilt remnants into my work was instinctive. The obsessive process of hand sewing, cutting, patching, ripping, layering textures and patterns is rooted in ritual. The endless repetition of detailed individual stitches is like the brushstrokes and marks I make on canvases. The weaving of the inside and outside surfaces is very physical and provides an outlet to connect with one’s body.
Representing the creative traditions of women and acknowledging their voice is of utmost importance.
HistoryQuilting, a practical and meaningful aesthetic practice has offered and still provides women with a chance to gather and communicate with each other. Very few pioneering women maintained a written dialogue; so quilting was their form of writing. Quilts tell unwritten stories that are deeply ingrained in American culture and traditions, as well as express personal aesthetics. They are bits and pieces of women’s lives and ways of living that span over generations and from all socioeconomic circumstances. For economic necessity the Pioneer and Great Depression era women recycled old feedbags and tattered cloths through quilting. The wealthy landowner or the Victorian crazy-quilt ladies spent their days creating elaborate stitching of expensive silk fabric pieces. This was a status symbol, displaying that women in prosperous households had large amounts of leisure time. Even today, quilting is still practiced and enjoyed by many women. Some women are even considered to have a clinical disorder that labels them as Quilting Addicts. These women are perceived to be neglecting their lives and families in order to quilt. They maniacally quilt every room, object and garment they get their hands on. One could say they have reached a level of hysteria and desperation that can only be contributed to unfulfilled longing. Does this obsession fulfill their spiritual needs through creating their own rituals?
ProcessMy work elaborates on one of the fundamental traditions in quilting: the reusing, blending and interlacing bits of fabric to form a new aesthetic object. Some quilts I hand-stitch with new fabrics whose colors and textures derive from the rich beauty passed down through centuries of textile design. Other quilts are directly borrowed from history by deconstructing antique ones. The recycling of old quilts is meant to create something outside of them selves and show that objects change as society evolves. With empathy I want to give these old quilts an opportunity to be revaluated in new contexts that reflect and intertwine passed traditions, standards and relationships with modern issues.
Bodyquilting Not only text, but also images, surround us and deliver fragments of meanings. Currently, I have been interweaving both new and old quilts with text related to our modern day obsession with body transformations. Words such as (Augmentations, Plucking, Lasers, Peels, Dying, Rhinoplasty, Face Lift, Transplants, Liposuction, Durmabrasions, Lasik Surgeries, Botox Injections, Restyline Filler, Juvedurm, Filler, Dermal Fillers, Prollenium and Hyaluronic Acid) represent the rewriting on the surface of our bodies that has become our modern-day ritual. The text fragments in the work juxtapose the bits of unwritten language that the quilts embody. Quilts are composed of bits of cloths and fabrics that elicit the body. We see our flesh as compartmentalized fragments that can be resurfaced, patched and transformed into new canvases piece by piece. In essence, we are quilting our bodies with the evolving text of culture and the visual standards of desire. It is the continuation of the unspoken need for women to exhibit and perfect their aesthetic desires out of something seen as flawed or broken, which stems from the traditions of women being regarded as objects.
The Body Quilting series is an attempt to layer dialogue and mutate fragmented parts in order to experience a montage of past and present, in and out, over and under, until they merge into new realities. They are patched, stitched, quilted and interwoven with both history and current obsessions. They symbolize our woven lives, where past and present coexist. Opinion Women have evolved from the quilting bee to the Botox party. Nevertheless, has our fundamental desires remained the same? Like my work, these rituals are rooted in physicality; the breaking down by cutting, ripping, and tearing in order to stitch, patch and layer something new and more beautiful. Although sometimes painful, the physical aspect of these processes is an outlet and opportunity for women to embrace their bodies. For many, there is a level of desperate, urgency and even masochism involved with the compulsion to dissect through cutting and tearing. When taken to the extreme, it can be seen as related to anorexia, bulimia, body cutting, excessive tattooing and piercing where ones desire is to go beyond reality into a new realm. The obsessive process and all-consuming ritual gives women a chance for their minds to escape the confines of life and to be self-possessed and anticipatory for their new creation.
This statement and my work are not meant to judge, but to ask: How did we get here? Culture is scripted on our bodies, and constructed by the world we each live in. We look back on societal practices and standards of the past in order to gain insight on modern customs. However, has feminism’s 150-year battle failed to empower women? Is the rapidly expanding and accelerating mass visual and textual stimulation too powerful? Has an abyss of loss and longing engulfed us?
