¹ú²úAV

Artist Statement

My artwork in recent years has followed a complex journey through architecture and figurative elements. I am interested in the metaphorical implications of the female body, especially when tied to place: buildings, fountains and other structures. The Erechtheion caryatids and the cult of Demeter, with their legacy in architectural ornamentation, continue to symbolically undergird the material and social character of human society, and the role women play in it. I do not aim to “prove” the connections I make through historical methodology. Instead, as a visual artist, I want to give them tangible form so that they can literally be seen from a new perspective.

The title of this exhibition, The Lightness of Bearing, was chosen specifically because of its play on words, which references feminist interpretations of architecture – in particular the Erechtheion caryatids. Although these female figures function as weight-bearing columns, they appear to perform their eternal duty without effort. This architectural form is a perfect metaphor for addressing the significance and power of women as structural supports for society.

In Comparisons, seven sets of paired images interleave architectural details with the bodies of women from a variety of ethnic traditions. Caryatids in Five Books displays photographic images of caryatids and verses from a poem by Romanian poet, Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu. Panis Angelicus blends the tangible with the ineffable, the material with the spiritual, and the architectural with the metaphorical. Zhyttya, which in Ukrainian means life, references classical architecture, Demeter and Persephone, and the traditional Christmas didukh in the eternal hope for spring. Throughout the show myth becomes matter, through the overlay of imagery.

Bearers and Mascarons present other links between the human body and architecture. “Mascaron” — a word that literally means “big mask” — is the architectural term for an ornamental face peering from the façade of a building. These faces are usually, although not always, human, and sometimes are grotesque. But rather than scaring us away, these mascarons seem to be protecting us. During the initial days of the COVID pandemic, I found myself drawn to, and drawing, these figures, relying upon a totally unexpected type of mask.

The Architecture of Memory references another architectural concept, which posits that rooms can function as receptacles of memory. This new installation, made specifically for the ¹ú²úAV Art Gallery, employs casts of architectural molding from one of the rooms in Hollybush. It frames the memory of Josephine Allen Whitney, who gave birth to seven children in that house, but about whom history remembers very little.

The Garden of Earthly Delights was made for an upper room at the Boland Gallery at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. The gallery’s walls were framed by architectural molding. Working within those constraints, I created a series of festoon-like wreaths encircling a woman’s face. The faces have fruits or vegetables forced into their mouths, with words underneath that are used to describe the characteristics of those fruits . . . or, allegorically, that are often used to describe the characteristics of women.