Currently on view at the Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery, Im happy to share this modular body of work for the Iona College Visual Art Program Faculty Exhibition. The exhibition runs through 12/5/19 – I hope you can check it out in person! If not, here is a selection of my contribution below. The works function as a single installation. My artists statement is below.
Title: “The Soundless Cities of Anonymity”
2018 – 2019 – Video Art & Installation
Artist Statement:
I’m Deaf and Hard of Hearing. I wear hearing aids to “synthetically hear”. Without them, I can’t hear at all. Even when I’m wearing hearing aids, (which allows for me to “hear” about 40% of what a normal hearing person can hear) I miss a ton of sounds, pitches, frequencies and words when trying to communicate. I rely on lip-reading, body language and emotional intelligence to fill in the blanks. Communication is very difficult to navigate in noisy environments, especially in large cities, crowded rooms, busy environments, etc.. I was never able to “overhear” or follow the conversations of other people in public space or anywhere. But you do, right? “The Soundless Cities of Anonymity” investigates this on a micro scale. The installation is about communication and the way that I perpetually juggle it as I watch how it is taken for granted. Especially by those with-out communication disabilities. Hearing people are exposed to “hearing everything” all the time, especially in public spaces. They kind of have no choice. I often wonder what that is like? I can read lips to a great degree and watch facial expressions and body language create patterns of repetition. Over time this has become both a visual language and an emotional one as well in and of itself.
When I’m not at work (or around a lot of people), I don’t wear hearing aids. I hear with my eyes and see in visual fragments. I seek many pieces and parts to communicate how those things take shape internally. The work in the videos are looping manipulations and extensions that are derived from a series of daily experiences, they’re metaphors and an expression of how this affects me on a sensory level. The static two and three-dimensional pieces in the show are paused, freeze-framed ceaseless moments. They are subjective extensions of fragmented potential. They are derived from missed words, sentences, phrases and all the times that you spoke to me without facing me directly. I find beauty in the soundless and the subjective.
The installation is broken down into a 2-channel display of several looping video and animation fragments, a digitally manipulated photo, two subjective relief sculptures that display fractured letter forms, a handmade zine (yes you may open it and thumb through it) without any text or verbiage and two organic clay sculptures reduced from a mass hoping the viewer will recognize their authenticity.
