The ‘obsession/compulsion’ series began when I started investigating my own and women’s relationship with clothing; our preparation as children and our guidance as adults to bond with consume and be consumed by our wardrobe. This work is about my experience and the shared experience of being female in our society. Our culture has ordained consumption and we, in turn, are consumed by consuming. Our energies, creativity and power are channeled into this pursuit. I reveal the peculiarities and habits of the individual, and in doing so, address the cultural influence and power or disempowerment encoded therein. I speak of the threads that connect all women via those things that are culturally, materially and genetically handed down. Some of these pieces are documentations of collections of clothing from individual members of my family. They aren’t secrets but the visual recording of them produces results that are startling nevertheless. The most recent pieces are constructions that reference the physical manifestations of our obsessions and extend the dialogue between the conscious and unconscious regarding our personal levels of insistence. They also comment on the reality of the security and/or comfort afforded by our compulsions. |
ALL WORKS ©2008 LAINE WYATT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.