Is There a Space I Can Take

Abstract

The work of this senior project explores what it is to have a body that exists and interacts with the environment it is in. I am interested in the body as a vehicle, used to physically move around in. I use shapes in my work to depict different bodies floating around and interacting with each other, the shape of their body defining the way they move and act in the world that I have created around them. The drawings consist of these forms, clustered, trying to find their place amongst one another. My project explores a physical awkwardness that has been consistently present in my life since early adolescence. I have explored this through small paintings which developed into large drawings, and later through sculpture. I articulate my ideas of restricting a body's movement through sculptures, as opposed to drawing or painting. The sculptural pieces take up a physical space and call for interaction between the viewer and it, something the two-dimensional work was unable to do. I transform the two-dimensionality, taking it off the wall and engaging space to jump between the two mediums. I specifically use fabric as a way to reference the body, fabric having an almost immediate association with the clothing that we wear on our bodies. There is something about clothing that has always fascinated me; it defines a person in the world we live in through color and silhouette. It can dictate the way we move by factors like restriction, weight, drapery. My senior project's body of work explores these ideas of the body and movement, relating it back to my personal childhood memories and feeling of dysmorphic awkwardness.