My practice utilizes self- representation to craft visual narratives that depict and disrupt assumed personas. The work is figurative in nature; I create depictions of myself that are first observed, then transformed into various characters and placed into unreal environments.
The act of drawing allows for a level of visible decisiveness that exposes the process of fictionalization to the viewer; any participant that is aware of the self- representative aspect of the work must also recognize the autonomy in my depiction of self. The drawings utilize traditional drawing media such as pastel, graphite, and gouache on paper. They are often mixed- media, containing a combination of dry and wet drawing material. The animations either utilize or mimic traditional drawing techniques, while expanding the use of visual narrative beyond a single image. Time- based works are presented in the format of looping GIFs, creating narratives with no real conclusion.
I came of age and live in an era where online exploitation, gender-based victimization, and the spectacularization of women is ubiquitous. Through the use of visual associations with the figure drawing tradition, I trace the history of objectification of women in fine art practices, and utilize visual strategies such as artificiality, the fantastical, and the pornographic to draw comparisons to contemporary media tropes and sexualization of women.
The implementation of the gaze in the work, along with its large scale and frontality, creates a viewing environment that presents the art objects as aware of their role as consumables, and alerts the viewer to their role as consumer. Absurdity and playfulness brings humor into the work; I reappropriate tropes to position depictions of persona alongside questions of how the act of consumption can function as a means of othering, and deny ease of consumption through equivocation.
Jennifer Smith 