“Finding Frida:removing residue with respectful silence” , 2 min Animation loop, 2014
Through deconstructing and re-evaluating the subtle natures of the painting come to life. Paintings have untold stories that lie underneath the layers of pigment and binder. If we could look through and see the biology of the work…. can we see how it grows?can we examine it? can we explore underneath the surface? Taking a microscope to a continuously shaking cell and looking at its life – I want to apply this idea to paint.
In Finding Frida each element falls and un-ravels itself to bring the attention to the surrounding atmosphere instead of the intense face that lies beneath the mask. I enjoy the whimsical nature of Frida’s Self-Portrait without the symbolic overture. Those symbols are briefly dealt with some elements creating a concentration on what entangles her but should not be the main focus. The outside conditions that surround her are constantly changing, the flowers that are her headdress organically disappear and create a beauty in the poverty of her image. It removes the theatrics of which she directs and places them into a different frame work. Here this specific oval frame relates to the natural clock cycle in which there is no fixed image. I then overlay my ironic comment on this fixed image of hers, which the public is already infused with before they set foot in the exhibition.