Artist's Statement
My work investigates the human body as it intersects with culture, history, and psyche. I work
in a variety of media according to the dictates of the idea.
As a sculptor, the material substance of the body intrigues me. I am especially interested in
fat, aging, and otherwise culturally despised bodies. I am both attracted and repulsed by the
desire to re-form the body through the self-inflicted bodily trauma of surgical intervention.
These pieces reflect that internal contradiction.
I often use the garment form as a framing device to present selected portions of the body and
to reference cultural associations. The resulting sculptures appear to be both clothing and
parts of bodies. This ambiguity implies similarities between the relationship of a person to her
or his body and that of the body to its clothing. It contends that a contemporary person
wears her or his body as a decorative object separate from the self. Like clothing, the body
can be altered or made over to suit various cultural needs. Its attributes can be carefully
accented or altered, obsessively planned and compulsively maintained.
My work investigates the human body as it intersects with culture, history, and psyche. I work
in a variety of media according to the dictates of the idea.
As a sculptor, the material substance of the body intrigues me. I am especially interested in
fat, aging, and otherwise culturally despised bodies. I am both attracted and repulsed by the
desire to re-form the body through the self-inflicted bodily trauma of surgical intervention.
These pieces reflect that internal contradiction.
I often use the garment form as a framing device to present selected portions of the body and
to reference cultural associations. The resulting sculptures appear to be both clothing and
parts of bodies. This ambiguity implies similarities between the relationship of a person to her
or his body and that of the body to its clothing. It contends that a contemporary person
wears her or his body as a decorative object separate from the self. Like clothing, the body
can be altered or made over to suit various cultural needs. Its attributes can be carefully
accented or altered, obsessively planned and compulsively maintained.
| All rights reserved, © Ann Rowles |
Ann Rowles
Mixed Media Sculpture
Mixed Media Sculpture
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