Play House
Play House and Pinnacles 1, 2, & 3 were created for my MFA Thesis show at Rhode Island School of Design.
Artist Statement:
Play House
Some walls are transparent and fluid, like the walls of memory. The malleability of memories is evident in the way their details ebb and flow over time. Certain words or sounds or smells surprise in their ability to conjure up long-forgotten moments with striking clarity, while the details of other moments, even dear or favorite ones, fade slowly over time and are never regained. How can we reconcile the desire to hold on to the past and the notion that ‘this very moment’ is all we can reliably know? How do the binding and irrevocable occurrences of the past, of childhood, shape us as we go forward?
Intermingled with our memory, bound inextricable in mind, blossoms the world of fantasy and dream. So seamlessly, so effortless does nostalgia shift to daydreaming we hardly notice the divergence. What does a child dream of? Children try out the roles we have shown them; they practice grown-up life playing house. What does the adult dream of? The relief and innocence of childhood ignorance, perhaps, and all of the things not yet been obtained. As the child slips into adulthood, do the dreams of youth become precious or laughable? As adults, can we honestly admit how quickly the innocence of childhood dissolves?
Fantasy gives us the means both to escape reality and the motivation to move forward; it provides respite and hope. Fantasy offers form to our conscious and unconscious desires. The act of noticing gives us the opportunity to interface with the existing moment, heightening our awareness and sense of presence. Shifting between states of attentiveness and imagination provides the opportunity either to acknowledge the rift between the inner and outer worlds, or to ignore it completely.
These different states of being are like a möbius strip, a one-sided loop that twists back upon itself. In my work I seek to unfurl the connections between childhood memory and adult fantasy; the emergence of sexuality and the loss of innocence; longing and owning; the rift between past and present; dream and reality; comfort and discomfort. I offer a state of confusion about what is real and what is imagined, what is large and what is small, what is child and what is adult.