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Untitled (Costume Pile)
dimensions variable
mixed media
2010
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Artist Statement
It began with an interest in the edge. A few years ago, I had a run-in with a mountain lion in the Sierras. The experience became the starting point for an investigation that considers the divide that separates humans, animals, civilization and the wilderness. The inquiry looks at the estranged relationship humanity has with the natural world and uncovers places where the wild remains inside of the human. It juxtaposes the icon with the decoy to both celebrate the situation and mark the discomfort. The ideas have expanded now to include what resides in border places generally. The marginal locations, both geographic and psychologic, are the places where identities get defined. My installation work moves into these territories and creates a theater. It usurps theatrical experience, lateralizes the hierarchy and transforms it into sculpture. It looks at what thrives in the margin and it discovers the itinerant. Characterizing the notion of itinerancy found in individuals, societies, philosophies and architectures, it stages coyotes, circus sideshows, Deleuze’s nomad and trailer parks. The current work swings legs over fences that divide what is civilized and wild and generally encourages and elevates a life at the border.
Contact
elizabeth@elizabethdorbad.com
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