Arm Armature
Arm Armature
NURTRUEart, Brooklyn, NY
October 21 - November 20, 2016
For years I stared at, photographed, and researched all sorts of armatures – from posing stands used in early portrait photography to hold subjects still for long exposures, to museum armatures that display ancient fragments. I am jealous of what these armatures know about touch: they cradle our most precious sculptures, caressing them tenderly on their vulnerable cracked surfaces. I am in awe of their power: they fixed bodies in position for impossible-to-hold durations to create the first magically instantaneous portraits.
Arm Armature emerged out of this obsession: I recreate and reimagine the armatures I admire in clay; make photographs of my arms behaving like and learning from the armatures; and I stage a dialogue between my sculptures and photographs. To house this dialogue, I create structures that I think of as “furniture-pedestals” - hybrids between museum pedestals that elevate sculptural fragments and household vanities where women use their hands and arms to prepare their faces to look beautiful. Display is a key interest of mine in this work (as it is the key reason that armatures exist in the first place): I use the conventions of studio photography, conventions shared by advertising and ancient sculpture documentation; I play with color to make things stand out or blend in; I tease out the idea of the front and back, having a “good and bad side”. I am interested in engaging seriously and playfully with the posturing, transformation and loss that armatures and display tactics represent.