Through Thought

Curated by Bebe Uddin

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Artists: MAESTRO, Sujetka, Cidney Cher, Sherly Fan, Arielle Weenonia Gray, EmmaJune Jones , Rui Kez, Jeremiah Morris, Sydney Wilson, Annu Yadav, Bethany Yeap

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Text co-written by Murph Phi, Bebe Uddin, & Zhanying

 

In this first series installment of “Through Thought”, :iidrr gallery is pleased to invite audiences into a thought provoking collection of works from artists along the east coast that allow us a look into the journey of creating work that reflects the distinct narrative histories that embody the lived experience of the artist, while exposing the choreographic relationship between realization, reason and reaction.

 

The intention of “Through Thought” is to challenge the viewer’s mind, beliefs or views of a particular subject, thought or the idea presented in the submitted work. The target submission is not completely fixed on imagination or just the idea or psychology of thought, and can also be communicated or informed by thought provoking behaviors. This is a way to help the person experiencing the work to understand conception from more of a minimal perspective if they were to land in a moment of photography. In the first installment of the series, we tasked each artist to contend with the concept of “Figurative.”

 

Figurative. What does it mean? What is its nature? Is it of the body or mind? Does figurative pertain to the lexical, theoretical, universal, or internal dimension of and of not the self? Can it be expressed, or does it simply exist as is? Art conventions recognize figurativism as relating to the anatomy—the vessel by which the soul is carried and materializes action into phrase and meaning. In this first installment, audiences are challenged to extend our understanding of figurative as a construct existing beyond the corporeal, beyond the limitations of speech and convention, as art in the abstract is inherently figurative, or is it? We invite each artist to offer their interpretation of this speculative concept.

 

Each artist featured in “Through Thought” suggests a subversion of our normative definition of figurative to extend into the realm of varied art mediums. The exhibit intends to explore the abstract, conceptual, literal, and learned dimensions of critical figurative thinking and its interpretive materialization via the personalized narratives of the artist’s lived experiences.

 

Each artist has mobilized a mode of the imaginative from the real, surreal, and hyper-real to reflect narratives distinct to each own’s historical framework of perceiving themselves and the world around them. The artist has achieved a semblance of the figurative. Through a varied series of configuration, disfiguration, reconfiguration, and transfiguration, a narrative has been solidified utilizing themes that touch on the social, economic, and political climate we find ourselves presently divided within.

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Emma Jones’ portrayal of distorted female corporeality calls to attention the societal expectation of the ideal body and the homogeneous standard of beauty that have disciplined the modern feminine psyche and bodily schema. In her work, the collapsed spaces that pressurize and envelop women’s bodies alternatively give rise to a heterogeneity-infused form of mobility, reflecting the adaptive strategies women employ through their perennial malleability in response to the relentless social edicts of a scrutinizing mediascape.

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