I am looking at artists i am attracted to currently - and have been for awhile. What is it about their work that makes me favor them over other artists? There is a hint there for where my work can go - for where I fit in.
Right now I don't fit in at all. my work is too embryonic over and over again. Even in gradschool, i wasn't sure where I fit in. I could say I fit into 'body', 'self identity and the aftermath', feminism...what do i fit into now? Or, more accurately said, What am i working towards fitting into? For nothing i have now is finished. Nothing I have now is fleshed out. It hasn't been for years. I am going to work deeper and thoroughly - or will it always feel embryonic?! It could. ha!
I will continue to look at artist's work I admire and find my own way within it.
Yinka Shonibare's work speaks to me because:
multi - media
power
societal relations
directly human - bodily response - my teeth hurt and i salivate as i think of his wood figures and the texture of the material on the figures.
failure/mishap
darkness
folly
from art 21:
"Known for using batik in costumed dioramas that explore race and colonialism, Yinka Shonibare MBE also employs painting, sculpture, photography, and film in work that disrupts and challenges our notions of cultural identity. Taking on the honorific MBE as part of his name in everyday use, Shonibare plays with the ambiguities and contradictions of his attitude toward the Establishment and its legacies of colonialism and class. In multimedia projects that reveal his passion for art history, literature, and philosophy, Shonibare provides a critical tour of Western civilization and its achievements and failures."
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