Artist Statement 2025
ARTIST STATEMENT
“Just be yourself” is a common catch phrase these days. It seems to be much easier for us to act as if, than to actually be. To just be, to connect back to ourselves, the conduit we have is our body. Therefore we must be aware of our bodies. However, this practice of embodiment is difficult because we often unlearn it throughout our lives and so we reach for it through practice, I.E. performance.
Performance is socially expected and accepted in visual art, theater, literature, music, dance, film etc.. However, it also exists in our cultural rituals and religious ceremonies. It thrives in politics and sports. It can be found in the systemic structures of race, class and socioeconomic status. It is embedded in the personification of intellectualism, ignorance, achievement, morality, domesticity, personality, gender, age and even emotion. Consider how often we wield the mask of anger.
The practice of painting can also be thought of as a performance. Albeit, mostly a private one, but the action of painting is a performance of observation, both external and internal. The end product is the remaining re-presentation on the stage of the viewing space. A theater of theater, if you will. Potentially, an image chosen to re-present will represent an idea, whether that is the intention or not, purely through the concept of illusion, which is what painting is. It is not the thing. It is a two dimensional interpretation of the thing.
Therefore, holding painting within the concept of performance offers the opportunity to witness this interpretation process internally. The recognition of the visual language of symbolism, technique, medium, process, scale, point of view, color palette and manipulation of light turns the process of looking into the awareness of illusion.
“Just be yourself” is a common catch phrase these days. It seems to be much easier for us to act as if, than to actually be. To just be, to connect back to ourselves, the conduit we have is our body. Therefore we must be aware of our bodies. However, this practice of embodiment is difficult because we often unlearn it throughout our lives and so we reach for it through practice, I.E. performance.
Performance is socially expected and accepted in visual art, theater, literature, music, dance, film etc.. However, it also exists in our cultural rituals and religious ceremonies. It thrives in politics and sports. It can be found in the systemic structures of race, class and socioeconomic status. It is embedded in the personification of intellectualism, ignorance, achievement, morality, domesticity, personality, gender, age and even emotion. Consider how often we wield the mask of anger.
The practice of painting can also be thought of as a performance. Albeit, mostly a private one, but the action of painting is a performance of observation, both external and internal. The end product is the remaining re-presentation on the stage of the viewing space. A theater of theater, if you will. Potentially, an image chosen to re-present will represent an idea, whether that is the intention or not, purely through the concept of illusion, which is what painting is. It is not the thing. It is a two dimensional interpretation of the thing.
Therefore, holding painting within the concept of performance offers the opportunity to witness this interpretation process internally. The recognition of the visual language of symbolism, technique, medium, process, scale, point of view, color palette and manipulation of light turns the process of looking into the awareness of illusion.
gypsyschindler@gmail.com