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Walsh Library
Gallery
Exploring Gender Roles Exhibition Checklist
Katherine Binder Dr. Carlisle has traveled extensively and has enjoyed capturing in infrared, color, and black and white, the fine art beauty and the photojournalistic reality of our global community. In her series, "The Struggle," which has been shown in various venues across the country, Dr. Carlisle has captured the essence of the experience of the extremely immature newborn baby. She has traveled as far away as Romania to document this phenomenon. Her interest in the crisis of individual identity in corporate America and in the hyper-real "truth" that has resulted from the substitution of simulacra for reality, has led her to begin a new series, "Red, Green, and Blue…”. In this series, she is utilizing the media, ready-mades, digital and traditional view camera photography along with painting to elucidate the loss of and the search for individual identity in America. Dr. Carlisle has studied photography at the Brooks Institute of Photography and Art History at UCSB. She also has a BS and an MD. Artist Statement- Red, Green, Blue ... An Homage to Postmodernism. A deep concern arose in me several months before I began this series as I read on one certain day a number of articles in USA Today, a nationally distributed newspaper. The subject of those articles and editorials was the threat to male hegemony and identity posited by the increasing number of women in colleges and postgraduate schools and what this threat meant to the future of the corporate world and to the power balance. According to these articles, the solution to this cascading danger was to recruit high school aged males a year before females were eligible to apply to college. I was stunned, even more so because I did not find, at that time, any counter to this argument. In order to address this and other concerns, I generated `'Red, Green. Blue ... An Homage to Postmodernism". In it, I have appropriated many of the images and linguistic tools of the late modern and postmodern periods to remind the viewer that gender and power issues were dealt with many years ago and that the seeds planted at that time to generate a more sophisticated understanding and a more equitable approach to difference and the new idea in our society may have germinated, but the roots did not take hold. The goals, set by those who challenged that which was accepted in the last century, were only partly met as the controlling elite saw to it that there was an appearance of change with legislation to eliminate the glass ceilings. Uncomfortable questions were and are masked by a thick film of media hype that transforms the token into the needed tool of control. By creating a form of constructed universal truth, the reality that there has not been and will not ultimately be any change in the power hierarchy in this country has remained hidden. In America, there is no true meritocracy and there is a limit to individual freedom that I have named the "narrow door". It is not that "the other" cannot pass through, but that there is a limit to how many and how much may be allowed to enter or said in another way, to interfere with the concretized status in quo. The consequence has been a paralysis which has resulted in a loss of the evolution of awareness and enlightenment.
With this series, I hope to re-open and to initiate dialogue about
freedom, merit, the narrow door, and the loss of individual momentum in
the American culture of today.
Kathryn Jill Johnson As my understanding of how these historicized images of children connected to F'reudian and Lacanian theories about personality development grew, I had an impulse to include references to children's playthings into the paintings. I found the addition of these toy images enriched the suggestive power of the work. The works "play" with the notion of children as objects of desire and beings with desire. The physical restraints suggest both damage and correction. The body remains central - is it vessel or source, trap or vehicle, friend or foe? We are creatures of flesh shaped by chemistry, physics, joy and desire. What ravages us? The force of denial, interruption, indulgence or transcendence hone us. We know intuitively that we "are", that we live inside our flesh-call it mind or soul or consciousness but where? The self is always shifting location in the body and in the frailties of memory. The relentlessness of time leaves us sure that this moment is the authentic one and the past, it's us and a stranger too.
I want to evoke both self-evaluation and empathy. The use of visual
references that are often damaged or fractured along with similarly
"broken" and repaired surfaces on the "body" of the works invite identification with both self and other. Revisiting these traumas that
are at once mundane, intense, and integral to growth makes these little
vignettes. They are nostalgic, dirty and spun between the pseudo
specificity of the science book and the translation into metaphor. They
reconfigured on a flat plane like text, but dirtier. They are stuttered
open, spread out like a story, like a joke where you can only remember the
sense of the punch-line and it is not quite right. You wonder: "Hey is
that mine? What you just told me, is it mine? Is the moment of hearing-
telling- showing-remembering mine?" We are creatures of damage. We are
creatures of radiance. We think we're so smart. It is a struggle to find light in difficult and dark times but hope pierces through because it is enlivened by faith. To recognize grace in the beauty of creation may seem obvious enough, but we are also called to find grace in the face of suffering, hunger, terror and anxiety; this is where the seed of compassion really begins to take root. The human person longs for eternity as well as for things which give ultimate meaning to our lives - not only in terms of what is to come but in the way that we choose to live our lives in the here and now; one greatly impacts on the other. Where have we come from? Where are we going? What is the nature of truth, love and beauty? These are the very questions that propel me to participate in the creative act. Living in a time mired by relativism, the world often appears groundless, hence the increase in depression, addiction, and violence. There is a need, therefore, to communicate a sense of joy, light, and hope while at the same time keeping in mind the many real and often devastating burdens which afflict the world. Gender, political, economic, and social roles - while important - can, if misdirected, miss the point of our common humanity. We live in a culture that constantly defines itself by what a person does and not who they are. It is not so much a matter of "re-defining" roles but a matter of once again unearthing the dignity afforded to all human persons regardless of externals. There are both distinctions and similarities which need to be kept in proper balance and maintained. When we push one over the other the fullness of who we are gets crushed.
Art is a springboard to the eternal/transcendent. Hopefully, it infuses a
sense of wonder, memory, and contemplation. My work as an artist forges
forth from the inner life, seeking out the core of what it means to be
alive. It is a glimmer of something far greater: the gift of creation
given to all.
Healing ourselves and healing our planet are the main concerns of my work.
Rooted in My metal work is a personal narrative of my southern upbringing. My pieces are a reflection of my inner thoughts and feelings. I have chosen to reference the female form, void of an actual body, implied through clothing. As a young girl I collected objects made for girls: stickers, ink pens, small dolls, figurines, costume jewelry and accessories for playing dress up. They sparked my love for the miniature, which has inspired my metal work. These objects became sacred to me. I worshipped them for their beauty and intimacy. As an adult I collect girls toys and fashion doll accessories because they are beautiful. As soon as I release them from their packages and hold them in my hand I ordain them as sacred. These girly toys have been by my side every step of the way during my passage into womanhood. My dress vessels become vehicles for my fantasies. Fairy tales and fashion magazines shaped the romantic fantasies that I had about womanhood. Personally my dress vessels contact with the fantasies of womanhood that I once perceived as reality. Now as a woman, they act as surrogates of childhood experiences rekindling me with my childhood fantasies. Void of the figure, these forms start to become self-portraits as well as vehicles for reaching glamour.
The little outfits that I create are something that would traditionally be
sewn. By learning to sew Barbie and other fashion doll clothes, girls were
being taught how to sew their own clothes and how to be fashionable on a
small scale. I never learned how to sew, but I always wanted too. I have
always had the desire to create clothing. As a woman, I fulfilled my
desire to sew in an alternative route, metalsmithing, which is now my true
love.
I save maps, journals, documents and photographs from my trips to the
lakes and mountains, and transfer the images or text to tactile fabrics
such as silk, satin, velvet and brocade. I stitch the pieces together in
layers, and embroider words from my diary in thick rayon and wool threads
using large cursive writing. I want the work to look old and intricate, as
an early twentieth century Victorian crazy quilt. The "Old People" paintings are a series in progress. They evolved out of another series I have been working on for about two years called the "Baby Series." This new series explores the opposite side of the coin (aged vs. infancy) or where these two states of being merge. As with the "Baby" series, I consider this new series to be deeply personal, evolving out of my own reflections on aging and my place in the continuum. At the age of forty-two, I see myself as being at equal distance from infancy and old age, a place of middle.
I do not work from models. I prefer to explore the images of figures as
they emerge from memory, imagination, and my own projections. Often as a
figure emerges, I find that it seems to take on a persona that is both
familiar and a complete mystery to me. These figures are alone in their
worlds, environments that suggest a combination of danger, playfulness,
and sexual tension. A sense of both resiliency and vulnerability emanates.
These worlds, or environments, are ambiguous, suggesting internal states.
The figures defy our usual notion of the aged as devoid of sexual
provocation. They don the symbols of youth and sexuality; a nipple ring or
a nose piercing. I am interested in exploring images and ideas in a way
which creates a sense of paradox. Women, in their traditional role of nurturing, loving mother, have the power to greatly impact the future of the world. A nurturing world starts at home with mothers. Stressed mothers hurt the world's future. No nurture means no future. When mothers suffer, the world suffers. Children need relaxed, happy, emotionally available mothers. The need for a nurturing mother, if unmet, has a profound impact on one's ability to function socially, as well as on one's basic biology. Early emotional experiences influence us for the rest of our lives. They influence how we see the world. A mother's love, attention, and snuggling teach us empathy, confidence, and resilience, as well as communication skills. Growing up in a predictable, safe environment with a loving mother helps us to develop a sense of trust and self-reliance, confidence, curiosity, enthusiasm, and motivation to learn, gives us a better handle on stress. Autobiographical, this art work reflects the psychological trauma I suffered as a child of a wardamaged woman. I am the unhappy baby in the art. My mother was numb, distracted, depressed, emotionally unavailable. She "had no milk." My endless crying for human warmth and affection was misunderstood. I was taken to a hospital, left there alone. And when I was only three months old, she was pregnant again. This art work is a response to current frightening world affairs, to poverty, hunger, war, so much psychological trauma suffered by women all over the world. Terrorized, grieving, hungry, preoccupied, distressed, distracted, stressed, depressed women cannot give their children the emotional support they need to grow up as psychologically healthy individuals. I don't wish see to my past repeating itself in the lives of countless children in today's world. This work is an outcry for world peace in these profoundly disturbing times. Have we not learned from history? What of the immense psychological impact of war and hatred? The possibility of my ugly World War II history repeating itself in the present world horrifies me.
Leslie A. Schug
Nicholas Schutsky
Sheila Smith My work is a reflection of my inner life and the world I live in. I try to be a careful and critical observer of contemporary society. I reveal my ideas by portraying figures and animals in an abstracted environment. The animals in my paintings are symbols for myself, women, and all human kind. Several years after I started to paint, I saw a show of Magritte's work. The contradictions his imagery produced intrigued me. I liked this in my own work but it happened subconsciously. I realized I needed to become more focused and purposeful. The result is a series of paintings that are incongruous. My paintings can be conceptual, expressive, and/or surreal. By creating tension and ambiguity I engage and confront the viewer. I suspend belief, pose questions, and portray contradiction and implausibility.
Charlie Spear
The piece mentioned above is autobiographical of the dismemberment of a my I am a painter of-the emotional slices of my life. Sometimes they are semi representational but most of the time becomes abstractions of these concrete emotions. I prefer the abstraction since emotional expression for me is to produce the language suited to my experience. If I paint a red rectangle and surround it with green hash marks the rectangle is neither red nor polygonal but emotional ether.
Erin Tapley I am fortunate enough to have a husband with curves and a marriage with angles, which defy typical gender roles. My artistic imagery plays with these factors, as I have always preferred to depict people as their candid selves.
Gwen Volner Walstrand
V. Elisabeth Westwood
Desirability 4 (Part 1)
I've never considered myself to be a tomboy,
but I don't quite meet all the social norms for a woman. I'm tall - almost
six feet, loud, and very forward. I don't wear high heels or nylons,
although I love skirts and dresses. The only makeup I own is lipstick,
which I often forget to put on when I'm going out. I've never had a
boyfriend. I used to worry that people thought I was a lesbian.
Melissa Zieziula Worthington
www.melissazworthington.com Artist's Statement The photographic pieces on display are part of a larger series, titled micro/macro/cosm/ology. A cosmology can be simply defined as a world view. Each piece is an experimental attempt to construct a hyper-real situation: one where I can see myself in a photographic moment where I am able to simultaneously interact with microscopic, biological events occurring within myself, fatalistic events occurring far outside the perimeter of my immediate awareness, past personal histories, past human histories, and acts of healing and wholeness. The presentation of the pieces as large, physical objects represent my corporal reality, which is confined to the laws of biology, physics, time and space. The illusion of the image floating on top of the piece suggest the presence of something ethereal, something fluid that changes and shifts. I want to challenge the assumption that photographs are objective and complete by incorporating elements of reality that a photograph cannot possibly capture. The result, ironically, is both more truthful and less believable. "Determination" uses illustrations from genetics texts to demonstrate possible genotypes that can result from a combination of dominant genes (represented by capital letters) and recessive genes(represented by lower case letters) from both parents. Any combination which includes a capital letter, or dominant gene, results in the dominant phenotype, or physical expression, of that genetic combination. Physical characteristics such as sex (not to be confused with gender), hair color, eye color, etc. are examples of traits determined by random combinations of genes. In the piece, I hold a little girl's dress over my body, a body which belongs to a grown woman in pig-tails, a hairstyle generally associated with young girls. The ribbon in the center of the dress resembles the shape of the chromosomes in the illustration. The question central to the piece is the role of biological force, so seemingly random, in the determinism of my socialization as a girl who will grow up to become a woman. "Consumption" portrays a woman (myself), seated flush to one side of the piece in a crouched, defensive position. Her hair is covered by a cloth, resembling a cross cultural practice of obscuring the head/hair of a woman, sparing viewers from its sexual suggestiveness, while also reminding the viewer of popular images of the Virgin Mary. The woman's arm is extended, bearing a glowing apple: a symbol of poisonous knowledge, which results in the downfall of such mythic women as Eve and the fabled Snow White. Over the female figure floats a circle of text which comes from the diary of a 17th century nun in Italy, who writes about the miracle of her survival despite self-starvation. Many monastic practices attempt to overcome the limitations of the body in order to come into mystical union with the Divine. The book Holy Anorexia by Rudolph M. Bell, from which the diary entry was appropriated, traces the history of anorexia through medieval Christian monastic practice in order to establish the argument that self-starvation is not an entirely contemporary phenomenon driven by external cultural forces, but part of a long standing tradition of self-control through denial. The title of the art piece, "consumption", refers to both the forbidden act of eating and/or acquiring, while also rhyming with the word "assumption", the word used to describe Mary's entrance into heaven (which suggests a passive act, in contrast to Jesus' "ascention" into heaven, which suggests decisive action).
"Containment'' portrays a woman (myself) seated among jugs, bottles, vases
and other vessels. The round, pear-like shape of the woman's body mimics
the round shapes of the various vessels in her company. Units of
measurement such as rulers and thermometers rise from the vessels and a
ruler creeps up the back of the woman like a backbone. The environment
surrounding the woman appears like ether or air, licking around the
objects like fire. The piece challenges the poetic description of the body
as a housing unit for the soul, a notion which implicitly divides the body and soul irreparably. Measurement serves as a
source of irony because of both the author's history of measuring her
self-worth by the appearance of her body as well as the inability of any
scientific tool to prove the existence of the spirit or soul. |
Updated:
08/19/04
