Comment

Comment by Rickson on February 10, 2009 at 7:12am

Below I have added my statement. I would like to thank all of those that commented on my work as you had a strong role in helping me to disect my work and understand it. I could not have interpreted it this well without your viewpoints.

It is entitled The Object of Your Affection. Enjoy. :)

Comment by Rickson on February 10, 2009 at 7:10am

In general my work deconstructs, then reconstructs parts of the body to comment on gender stereotypes, roles and anatomy to create new creatures that don’t know what purpose their existence serves other than to show both the obscenity and appeal of both conforming to and struggling against gender stereotypes. The creatures are sometimes confused or questioning their position and their balance between animal and human appearance expresses their confusion with their desires that manifest in new forms sometimes creating parts of their own bodies. Sometimes over sexualized, sometimes not sexual at all, genitals and alluring body parts are combined to create organisms that describe the result of sexualizing some body parts more than others. Legs are a perfect body part to describe this phenomenon because they can be both sexual, and non sexual.

Most of the legs in these sculptures are serving as a support system and are strong, sculpted in hard metal, in poised positions. This implies a trained structure is giving birth to creatures that appear more vulnerable and random then their strong support systems. They have positions that imply both a struggle and compliance in their state. This is both confusing and accurate in reflecting how a creature constructed from a select amount of body parts and then put on display, supported by outside forces, would feel. This creates a metaphor for how it feels to be an individual living in a world where your body dictates how you are seen and who you are in society. You are only the sum of your parts and we all grow comfortable with this, using our bodies to our own advantage. However by doing this we meet the expectations of our makers, and whatever society expects of our bodies. If we become aware of this, we may get uncomfortable, but have nowhere to go. We cannot leave our bodies, we are prisoners. And so we succumb to enjoying our positions, and maybe still confused and uncomfortable, we are stuck.