Summer 2012: undergraduate research award
artist statement
In this series, I initiated a process for creating wearable sculptures based upon a series of media translations that include painting, sculpture, photography, and performance.
Starting with a photograph of myself I manipulate the image digitally on Photoshop with the smudge tool to create colorful, lined streaks that appear to stretch the body. These manipulated images, the smudges specifically, are source material for the sculptures. I paint the digital manipulations to cotton fabric and transform the smudges into wearable objects. Finally, my performances in the pieces is documented photographically.
Through these actions, a previously screen-based object is made tangible and given a three-dimensional space to occupy. I initiated this process because it melds the physical, the digital, and the imaginary, but as the project evolved over the summer, I started to find more personal meaning in the process. As I pull the smudge tool across the image of my body, I envision pulling against the restriction of skin or pulling skin over myself as a source of protection. Through this process, I am stretching the limits of my own identity in an attempt to withdraw, bind, purge, depart, conceal, and confine myself.
Acknowledgments:
This project was funded through the University of Pittsburgh and the Office of Undergraduate Research. I would also like to acknowledge Anna Divinsky who mentored me and Alison Tan who took the photographs of me wearing my sculptural pieces.
Starting with a photograph of myself I manipulate the image digitally on Photoshop with the smudge tool to create colorful, lined streaks that appear to stretch the body. These manipulated images, the smudges specifically, are source material for the sculptures. I paint the digital manipulations to cotton fabric and transform the smudges into wearable objects. Finally, my performances in the pieces is documented photographically.
Through these actions, a previously screen-based object is made tangible and given a three-dimensional space to occupy. I initiated this process because it melds the physical, the digital, and the imaginary, but as the project evolved over the summer, I started to find more personal meaning in the process. As I pull the smudge tool across the image of my body, I envision pulling against the restriction of skin or pulling skin over myself as a source of protection. Through this process, I am stretching the limits of my own identity in an attempt to withdraw, bind, purge, depart, conceal, and confine myself.
Acknowledgments:
This project was funded through the University of Pittsburgh and the Office of Undergraduate Research. I would also like to acknowledge Anna Divinsky who mentored me and Alison Tan who took the photographs of me wearing my sculptural pieces.