2 x 2
MARIA DRISCOLL MCMAHON
“I am a rural artist.” Those five words carry a freight of stereotypes and prejudices. Maria examines the psycho-socio-political implications of both rural and urban stereotypes which, she submits, fuel the culture wars. She performs and sculpts with burdock burrs and plaster, makes videos and drawings.
— We create objects, interactive & sculptural installations, video & street performances with the broad theme of internal and external construction, negotiation – & destruction – of identity & stereotypes.
SANDRA STEPHENS
“I turn identities inside out”. Sandra is fascinated by construction and reconstruction of identity: internally by the self, from the outside by stereotypes and visual culture. She uses video installations – the viewer as part of the piece, the piece responds to the viewer to look at interconnections between identity dualities.
— Our figures have agency. Our objects empower viewers as complicit participants, as centers of process and experience.
BEN ALTMAN
“I explore the complexities of my empowered and entitled status”. Ben uses photography and self-portraiture to play with representations of masculinity. He explores how private vulnerabilities and constraints
tangle with a public image as privileged, entitled and dangerous.
— We complicate and push against dichotomies and hierarchies: self/other, rural/urban, black/white, perpetrator/victim, straight/LGBT, performer/observer.
CARLA RAE JOHNSON
(GUEST ARTIST)
“I take on the persona of the thoughtless; the bigot; the greedy; or the fearful”. Carla Rae’s drawings parody attitudes, rationalizations, assumptions, and contradictions to which we all too often fall prey. She also creates intricately crafted sculptures that represent historic pairings of individuals, within both privileged and non-privileged identity categories.
— We will reflect our own diverse, double, and indeed multiple identity categories (whether privileged or not), investigating ways of looking, seeing, presenting, experiencing, and remembering.