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• Artist: Robert Kaliyongo Chimungwa

Untitled, 2009

Bushman, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Artist: Michael Ferris Jr.
• Medium: Recycled wood and pigmented grout sculpture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Artist: Carrie Ann Schumacher
• Medium: Paper 

Artist Info: My work uses humor to address the ridiculousness of my lifelong pursuit of personal perfection. Fourteen years of Catholic schooling ingrained in my brain that anything less than flawlessness is complete failure. My work examines the impossible expectations I place upon myself, the failure that follows when I attempt to reach these expectations, and the absurdity that I recognize this cycle but continue to indulge in it anyway. Currently, the manifestation of this concept separates into two paths: the dresses and the monsters.

The dresses examine the demands that things such as romance novels, celebrity magazines and the world of high fashion place upon women. Women are programmed from birth to buy into this culture of unrealistic romance and beauty. The dresses themselves reflect this as they are beautiful, but due to the material they are created from, unable to be worn. Completely without function, they represent seeking the unobtainable, which is the folly and heartbreak of womanhood.

My monsters series is more personal to my own history. I view the monsters as extensions of myself, and simultaneously as the protective friends I would have liked to have had as a lonely first-grader dreading another day with a teacher known for locking her students in closets. I view the monsters as being the perfect vehicle for examining impossible expectations because they possess the inherent flaw of ugliness. However, I force my monsters to face their (and my) issues in that they can hopefully accept themselves just as they are.