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“On
Tender Hooks” Writing about the ideas and intent |
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The first thing I like to make clear when talking about my work is that the images I create are visual questions that I am asking of myself, and by extension, all those who come in contact with them. They are questions, rather than statements of opinion, because I am constantly struggling to reevaluate my own assumptions about human behavior and motivation- my self as the primary subject of scrutiny. This ongoing internal investigation allows me to delve into subjects I find deeply uncomfortable and personal, using the sculptures I create as a means to speak of things I find impossible to put into words. Contrary
to the perception many people have initially of my work, I am not out to
shock or confront the viewer with the images I create. Instead,
I am taking material that is already uncomfortable and trying to
recreate it with an element that keeps people engaged despite the
disquieting nature of the subject. I
take moments of stress and try to point out the humor of the situation;
feelings of rejection and loneliness and transform them into universal
feels that are shared; moments of suffering and transforming them into
situations where we can see how unnecessary and avoidable they are. I
really want to make these uncomfortable aspects to our humanity and make
them somehow beautiful, poignant, sensitive and above all, something
that I can overcome through understanding and empathy. I
shyly reveal my vulnerabilities and deepest insecurities in the hopes
that I will be understood and forgiven.
What really drives the work is the attempt to lure others into
confronting these same issues. This
is the main reason that I shifted from using the human form to the
animal figure. In
my experience, I found that most people empathized more readily with
animals than humans. There
is an assumed moral and emotional innocence that we associate with the
animal image which allows me to delve into territory which we normally
find too uncomfortable to dwell on. I
want to create images that address some tough questions, while at the
same time addressing why we
find these questions uncomfortable. Themes
of Recent Work
The last element that I feel is important to the work I create is the
fact that these sculptures- while remaining individual characters are
essentially part of a group of characters that were created for a
specific body of work. This
past year and a half I begin a new series of work, based of the history
of scientifically categorizing human behavior. I
was most interested in a particular way of
understanding/misunderstanding human psychology that was practiced by
the Greeks, founded by Hippocrates. As
the Wikipedia entry
describes: “Essentially,
this theory held that the human body was filled with four basic
substances, called four humors, which are in balance when a person
is healthy. All diseases and disabilities resulted from an excess or
deficit of one of these four humors. The four humors were identified as black
bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood…. When
a patient was suffering from a surplus or imbalance of one fluid, then
his or her personality and physical health would be affected.” Simply
stated, each of the four types could be characterized in the following
way: ·
Sanguine Too
much blood Passionate,
Bold, impulsive ·
Melancholic Too
much black bile Depressed,
anxious, moody ·
Choleric Too
much yellow bile Irritable,
hostile, bitter ·
Phlegmatic Too
much phlegm Passive,
introverted, rational I
was intrigued with the idea that people could emotionally and
physiologically evaluated based solely off of how much fluid they
contained in their bodies. Looking into the idea a bit further, I
discovered a work of fiction written by Rupert Thomson, Divided
Kingdom, in which society has been divided into four separate
quarters according to the inhabitants' dominant humor. The
grouping of characters that I created for my exhibition, “On
Tender Hooks” this past fall was an exploration of that idea- on
the surface, treating the humors as a serious method of categorizing
human behavior, while questioning the legitimacy of over-simplifying
people in this way and more importantly, investigating the very human
need to understand each other in this way. Our need to label,
categorizes, and distinguish ourselves from one another through gender,
race, religious affiliation, body image, sexuality, or politics is a
reoccurring theme in my work. “A
Rush of Blood to the Head” in Context
I began the working on the cast of characters with the idea for the
portrait of the Sanguine personality- those who are afflicted with an
excess of blood and characterized by intense passion and impulsiveness. Following
from my work on the exhibition, “A
Modest Proposal,” in which I explored aspects of human sexuality,
I still felt that I was struggling to understand and relate to certain
aspects of gender identity. I
remembered reading an account of an antiquated view of homosexuality as
being described as ‘aberrant and unnatural behavior caused by a rush
of blood to the head.’ The
phrase ‘a rush of blood to the head’ was also used as a legal
defense to describe ‘a crime of passion’ for which the person could
not be held accountable. It
made me think about the desire to ascribe anything other than
‘accepted normal behavior’ as a fault of one’s own irrational
body…an excess of blood in the body. I
find it curious that the same aversion does not necessarily apply to the
idea of women sharing intimacy with one another- in fact had the two
figures in ‘Rush’ been female, then the result might have had more
similarity to a beer commercial than a controversial image. Is
it because we associate the feminine with ideas of nurturing, affection,
and intimacy, while the male image is traditional grounded in images of
independence, power, and virility? I
wanted to explore the more fundamental and conflicted views we have that
lie beneath these social political issues, and many of the works in “On
Tender Hooks” address multiple assumptions about gender identity.
"A Rush of Blood to the Head" is the
centerpiece of the entire exhibition, because more than any of the other
pieces, the sculpture of the two kissing goats deals with something
that is profoundly human. The
kiss is specifically a gesture of human intimacy. The passion and
tenderness of the embrace is likely to provoke a sentimental response,
despite the fact that is completely unnatural for two animals to display
affection with their mouths in a kiss. When
you are just looking at the upper half of the goats, you are
dealing with issues of human intimacy and passion that are identifiable
by almost anyone. But then we come back to that initial reaction - why
does viewing the sculpture in its entirety so
often change the
viewer’s reaction? When
you are viewing the sculpture as a whole, it addresses a complex and
controversial social issue which everyone is familiar with. Out
of all the forms of intimacy, this one seems to me to be the hardest one
for most people to accept, regardless of what side they come down on
personally or politically. My
goal was to make this piece as alluring and passionate as possible, so
that there’s always an element that calls to people to remain engaged
despite any uncomfortable feelings with its sexuality.
The initial impulse for creating these sculptures is the struggle to
overcome my own assumptions about the thoughts, motivations, and
feelings contained beneath the surface of the people around me. I
am often tangled in a mess of frustration with my own limited
experiences, inhibitions, fears, and prejudices that create a barrier
between understanding and communicating with the people around me -
whether they be strangers or my closest acquaintances. |
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- Beth Cavener Stichter March 2010 |
