body

I use my art practice to express the dualities, issues, questions, feelings and conflicts of a bi-national, bi-culture, and bi-language woman identity - pain, belonging, struggles, cultural loss, self-esteem, acceptance, and inclusion. My practice transports the audience into the experience of being in my world - emotionally and physically - by utilizing Painting, Installation, Sculpture, and Photography. This is portrayed by using elements such as body language, facial expressions, objects, shadows, and nature. My use of iconography is important to represent both the Mexican and American cultures, inspired by the symbolic metaphors of Frida Kahlo. My depiction of dualities is influenced by Cindy Sherman and Ana Mendieta. The colors used in the work reference the national flags, culture and emotions. The materials, such as tissue paper and paper mache, interpret the Mexican handicraft and piñatas, and chicken wire and wire fences relates to the barbed wire and fence of the U.S. and Mexico border. In the U.S., some of these issues are shared between the Chicanx, Latinx, immigrants, women, and minority communities. My work, as well as this paper, decolonizes art and is made to represent the people that resonate with it.

In this paper, Bodies Treading in Data Fog, I discuss how memory and language allow one to make meaning from stimuli. As stimuli grow farther away from an individual's existing framework of knowledge, the vocabulary for specific naming depletes. This work is framed through the need to relate, not only to each other but also to the objects that surround us. The body works as a catalyst for the lens I'm looking through. We are working towards finding a place to exist. The Uncertainty Avoidance dimension in cultures explains the tendency one has to categorize ambiguity: it is humankind's search for truth. By becoming the mediator of the objects and materials used, I produce a constant questioning of intent for the viewer; I am questioning why these objects and materials exist, why and how they are used in this conditioned state, and why it matters to us. Juxtaposition between object, material, and imagery aids as another form of an amplifying technique. Through this meditation by means of material and objects we are able to reflect on what it means to be human and live through this current data fog.

My study of feminism and gender politics has created a need for me to look at, and examine, my personal position in the world. I am driven by how I fit or how bodies like mine fit into our social norms and understandings of what it is to be a woman. My fat body is used to examine spaces where some find discomfort. I am interested in presenting my flesh in an open way, continuing to understand the space I occupy in relation to others. My breasts, stomach, and fat are exposed in each painting. Flesh has turned into material; paint and canvas have become body. Each piece exposes the material of paint, and the sensuality of the medium bleeds into the representation of form and flesh. Canvas hangs on the wall like skin, acting like a body all on its own. In these works, I examine our many facets and use my body to understand the psychological connection between ourselves and our bodies. Multiple figures occupy the picture plane, creating a space for transparency and abstraction. These bodies are depicted in dialogue, and in viewing the paintings one is asked to contemplate the multiplicities that make up each of us.

By examining phenomenology and the work of Julia Kristeva along with outlining an historical progression of experiential artists stemming from the sublime and onto body artists, this thesis defends the rationale and methodology behind the performative endurance work 5 Day Fast: [My Theses on Art], also known as 5DF, by Nick Rivers. This body of work is influenced by research and exploration of perception, the body, 'self', and 'the other.' Being concerned with Ontology and existence, the desire to transcend our reality and existence through art, in art, and with art is taken up as a political statement; a reaction against the current socio-political climate, the mundane, and the trivial concerns of life. Instead, 5DF is a refuge into art; an examination of how we are all connected and related to one another. 5DF challenges the truth and clarity behind the individuals' perception and authenticity.

This thesis explores the mediated experience by integrating digitally rendered three-dimensional works with sculptural pieces to describe a feeling of in-betweenness—between real and digital, and the body and the mind. Focusing on theories of posthumanity, Internet spectatorship, and mediation in the Digital Age, the final thesis work aims to integrate the real and the digital and begins to blur the distinctions between these two realms. The final thesis installation consists of a digitally 3D rendered, interactive space with a built environment, including a small drawing at the center, and two inkjet prints of 3D renderings bookending the work. In this work I am addressing concepts of gravity, loss of body in the digital realm, impermanence, man-made artifice, and semblance of control.