Alden Smathers
Conscious/Unconscious Into Form, 2020
Wood, cardboard, screws, hardware cloth, plaster gauze, muslin, thread, and paint
Variable dimensions
The elements of my work coflate ideas of labor and gender with artistic action. With performative inspirations from Rodchenko (work clothes) Jackson Pollock (action painting and the unconscious), Yves Klein, and Janine Antoni, (gender issues), this piece was designed to explore related dynamics between the conscious and the unconscious, the functional and non-functional.
The mop/paint brush individually bears practical meaning by contradicting its assumed function with its artistic function; it acts as a tool for painting. The mop also holds some significance as a symbol of housework and traditional gendered expectations of women. The paradoxical functionality of the mop creates a new narrative for its symbolic meaning by bending the imposed notion of its use.
The white muslin with which the apron and large sculpture are created from acts as action on a blank canvas. The three-dimensional manipulations of the fabric in transformation again is given form directed by the interplay of conscious and unconscious factors. It is meant to be formed as a non-functional symbol of this interplay.
The apron as a utilitarian uniform, was inspired by Rodchenko’s work clothes and performance costumes. My apron is used as a tool to inspire inquiries re-gender as that informs the nature of production. How do artists function creatively to avoid the mechanics of progressively assembling products?
