About
What is the most frighteningly honest connection between maker, object and viewer? How does the grotesque and delusional illuminate the truth? I’ve been working with these concerns for several years and my practice uses interdisciplinary means to explore these questions.
Much of the artwork I make is an ongoing discovery of fantasy and the gross nature it takes on when interposed on the “natural” (and / or “unnatural”) world. What are the bizarre embodiments of these psychological realms brought to life in the real world?
My most recent work emphasizes interdisciplinary practices such as site specific installation, performance and supported video documentation to question contemporary problems playfully. These “problems” usually deal with intimacy, relationships, power, and the environment. I believe my work to be an intensely psychological celebration; my hope is to expose and explore collective human failure and conditioning. For example, in the project “Eco Sexy” I became a living installation in a solar-powered airstream with a man-sized rag doll. Dolly, (the rag doll) and I role played an intimacy normally associated with romantic human relationships drawing on the historical manifestations of the doll and its cultural role in conditioning children in appropriate behaviors such as nurturing, relationships and procreation. In much of my work I exhibit the influences of Conceptual Art, Poetry, Psychology, Science Fiction, and Comedy.
REALLY….
I’m just looking for the intersection where beauty and horror meet.
Laura Zuspan 