Assignment # 2
I
have been assigned to write what has influenced my practice as an artist. I
feel I am pretending sanity, or rehearsing sanity and striving to be rational.
Rationality is universal, anyone can understand me if I am rational. Even
though absurdity is our common denominator. Except if you see me as rational is because I hide myself. I
hide in a warm dark cave in silence. I don’t know how to be myself in the
world. My flesh overpowers my existence. Monkeys inhabit my brain.
“I
sang out the sadness of being born” wrote Alejandra Pizarnik. I see myself in
her, always carrying a sense of existential tragedy. My first memory? the
feeling of being trapped. My constant. Tiny monsters are drinking my blood,
biting with their tiny teeth my flesh. The body is in flames. I am the traveler
with no home, with no sense of place. A tree with no roots to the earth.
I
could never be seduced by the spell. My ruby glasses were broken. My ruby
glasses had the wrong prescription. I could not see the world tinted ruby, but
astigmatism glimpses through the cracked glass. I was driven to art because I
wanted to create a world inside the world. I wanted to play life, as one plays
house. To imitate the intelligible to escape to the unintelligible. To play the
game aching to break the spell. Art peels layers of tissue from my body, it is
a painful sacrifice in which I choose to close the door to myself. Or better,
open it in secret using allegories like music in a mute vibration. I don’t want
you to look at me. I want you to
see me. But I am happy if you see yourself and I am your mirror. I want the
warmth and camaraderie of sharing. I want you to have a piece of me and then
for you to disappear in it.
I
vomit myself drunk in the nothingness. I want to expulse my body out of my
body. I want to cease. I wanted to
be a thinker, and thoughts consumed me. I thought thoughts would be appeased if
they materialized in form. Somehow they are appeased; somehow they are border line
reigning out of control. I dare to look at all the darkness and laugh. Art
making is my sinister delirium of survival.
"IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD"
"It's All In Your Head"
Reception: Wednesday, January 11, 6-8pm ExhibitionJanuary 7 - February 4, 2012
Westside Gallery
133/141 West 21 StreetNew York, NY 10011
The Westside Gallery is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and is closed on Sunday
Interview in Welcome To COMPANY
I had a nice conversation with Rhoni from COMPANY, who (after they visited my open studio) interviewed me in a community garden for their discovery series. To read it click here: Welcome To Company
Also COMPANY's ArtV mobile gallery will be in Miami functioning as a shuttle to help collectors and the interested public navigate the fairs.
Aqua Miami 2011
For those heading to Miami here are the details and location to see the work of the Visual Arts Gallery Booth
This print came out beautifully! Edition Available at COMPANY
This print came out beautifully! It is an archival pigment print on Tyvek sold online at the COMPANY website for collectors of emerging art. Click here to buy it.
Uprising after the Femicide is a reproduction of a large-scale hand-painted
woodcut print. The central figure is an Insurgent-Woman-Spirit in a balaclava
mask with blood pouring down from her chest, rising from the ground where
her own bones lie on top of a dahlia surrounded by Aztec ruins. The piece was
created with the aim of raising awareness about the Juaréz femicides. However,
it holds many layers of content that relate to colonialism and neo-colonialism,
women’s emancipation, nature’s destruction, and exploring the complexity of
emotions that one suffers after being subjected to forms of oppression, violence
and abuse. Which in this case, leads to the uprising of the Magical –Insurgent-
Spirits that populate the Aztec territory and lead a mystical battle in which
they are victorious. This piece was formally influenced by religious paintings
from the 1400’s to 1500’s. Elements that caught my attention, particularly in
Christian paintings from that era, were their extremely bloody visual narrative and
symbolism. Tenebrist painting and Latino-American art from the colonial period
can also be counted as visual influences.
Odeon Contemporary Art Fair in Bogotá
This is an image of the El Garaje gallery booth at the Odeon Contemporary Art Fair in Bogotá, (which took place at the end of October). They showed my early photography work "Women That Live in the Collective Imagery".
Limited editions prints for purchase at COMPANY
I have some exciting news! The wonderful people at COMPANY are now selling limited editions of two prints from my works Mamá Luz(originally collage) and Uprising After the Femicide(originally a painted woodcut print). They are the highest archival quality and look beautiful in person, the
images online don't do them justice. The idea behind these series, was
to do affordable editions for young art collectors and also to support
emerging artists.
COMPANY also functions as a space for art collectors to sale work from more established artists. Click here to buy prints
Elektra KB at the Aqua 11
My work will be at the Visual Arts Gallery booth at the Aqua art fair 11 in Miami.
Embroidery works in progress
These are digitized embroidery pieces on translucent fabrics that I am doing for a larger piece of the Theocratic Republic of Gaia.
Rising Spirit After the Femicide
Detail
The Catalytic Noise Machine Confessional at Welcome to COMPANY
Group show at COMPANY exhibition
space in the Flatiron district -inauguration for art collectors - in which I did a site specific performance and video installation. Other rooms had the video work of artists Yorgo Alexopoluos and Federico Solmi.
By Jedediah Charles
COMPANY Launches The Collector Series
(July 28, 2011)
"The fourth artist exhibiting and performing at the COMPANY event was Elektra KB – a vegan-feminist-situationist of Ukranian-Colombian descent. Tucked away in a back room, she created an unsettling environment complete with a video and multi-track dialogue on repeat. The piece draws from The Theocratic Republic Of Gaia, which Elektra defines as an alternate way of perceiving the true world, in which the population gets brainwashed and forgets what reality is.
This work calls to attention the new "religion" of media and consumerism. In the room, Elektra assumed the character of The White Papess, ruler of Gaia. She lay still in bed with her eyes closed while guests entered the room to paid homage. I definitely felt like a cult member in the confines of that stark white room, especially with the uneasy soundtrack and slumbering painted papess. Definitely an artist to watch for in the future."
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