The deception of aesthetics and the truth of touch; physical body vs. romantic notion; the incident of being both attracted and repulsed simultaneously; romantic disappointment, beauty and the sentimental article; materials exchanging attributes; the physical workings of science and the natural world, its constructions and curiosities...

The specific imagery I have been working with is an abstracted form, adapted from the shapes of a jellyfish.  The organic, transparent and bubble like shapes are paired with long frilled and flared tentacle-like strips.  Another reoccurring form, stout and metamorphic, a vegetable: the turban squash.  These forms are sinuous, supple and ephemeral yet bodily.  They can seem unearthly, however are derived from nature.  They are not overly direct, not meant to be representational but rather open to various understandings.  Emphasis is put on tactility and the connotations of the materials.  When all elements are combined dialogue begins between them in attempts to create a phenomenal aesthetic experience of female subjectivity that has the ability to transcend from form to formless and back.

Heather Marchand © 2010