"Ghost as Profile"
I'm applying to Smack Mellon today and I have to give super huge thanks to Mikel for spending so much time last night helping me hash out the newer details in my artist statement that I've been working on. Having breakthroughs in my work, like finding my ghosts, is very inspiring and fresh, but it also means I have to go back once again to my thinking mind and give words to the ephemeral things I'm making. It's essential to have someone else to bounce words off of.
About my ghosts: I initially called them 'ghosts' as a playful association. After a studio visit with Nina Katchadourian at VSC I realized that 'ghost' is a good word for what I've been making because they disintegrate into hints of something illusive that might have been there but isn't fully described. The meaning of the ghosts must be imagined based on their 'containers'. My definition of 'container' is: the described limit of what we do know on which we base the meaning we make of the unknown. The ghost/container above is sort of a purely abstracted ghost named for an image association I made when it was complete (doesn't it look like a profile?). I am also starting from recognizable imagery to create different 'containers' for ghosts such as in this piece which started from a polaroid of Mikel:
"Permeable: Ghost and Squirrel Work Together"
I like the more specific content to each piece that comes from the recognizable images.
I meant to mention this artist yesterday when I was writing about 'sunyata'. Her name is Aurora Robson and she currently lives and works in Brooklyn. I haven't met her... yet! Her sculptures are more interesting to me than her paintings as she uses recycled plastic, tinted poly acrylic and rivets, transforming the materials into magical and beautiful assemblages. An interesting tidbit about her painting, however, is that the second piece listed on her website is called "Sunyata". Imagine that!
"Sentinel"
"Listening Pleasures"
4 comments:
Megan,
Funny thing, I think of my memories and the things that have inspired me as ghosts. The impressions of my past haunt my mind trying to work their way back to the living world though my art.
I find it interesting how we associate with the idea of ghosts each in our own way. But there is a connection between how we both feel about the nature of ghosts as a shadow embodiment from some original source.
Love the new earrings by the way, adorable.
Michelle,
I am interested in your ideas about ghosts. Especially the idea that impressions of your past haunt your work in the present. I wonder if ghosts of our future also do this...?
What an interesting topic! I would like to see an exhibit about ghosts someday...
Hummm Megan, now you have me thinking about time travel and the imaginary worlds we create of the future. All sorts of shenanigans are running through my mind, its an interesting topic.
But yeah I would to talk about this more in depth when I come to visit.
Yes! I can't wait to talk face to face.
Another comment on ghosts: perhaps there are ghosts in this world that indicate a presence of another parallel world. In the book I mentioned a while back called "Color" I read about Aboriginal people and their mythology called "dreamtime". The part that I am most interested in is that they believe in a parellel spirit world to our concete "everyday" world that is considered more real than this concrete world. Sometimes there is evidence of this spirit world such as:
"...the Yarralin people of the Victoria River Valley venerate the spirit Walujapi as the Dreaming Spirit of the black-headed python. Walujapi carved a snakelike track along a cliff-face and deposited an impression of her buttocks when she sat establishing camp. Both these dreaming signs are currently discernible." check out more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime
hrmmm...
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