Wanda J. Pearcy / Artist Statement

Motivated by a desire to live authentically, I am committed to the difficult task of sorting through layers of historical information, both personal and social. As a way of speaking about the affect historical information has on the development of an authentic voice I use materials that ellude to a history, to form objects or installations that become metaphors of a struggle for authentic existense.

Aesthetically, I am always drawn to texture, the manipulation of it, the creation of it and the study of it. I see layers of texture as a metaphor for historical information. A unique texture on the side of a building that has many layers has embedded into that surface events of history. This type of texutre leads me to touching and pondering the nature of what exists within those layers. Metaphorically, the layering of texture evokes histories both personal and cultural. The overlaying of textures leads to the idea of overlaid histories suggesting links and a broader understanding of the story. Thinking about the event(s) embedded into the physical layers of a texture can take up a moment or linger, just as the color of the texture of a green flec of paint may stay with me after spending a moment touching it. This is a visual experience that leads me to thinking about histories.

The feeling involved with texture is a sensory experience, one of existing within a sensory system. Feeling a texture or imagining the feeling of a texture is one of the most basic sensory experiences of living within a nervous system. Using this type of experience in my work allows me to make objects and installations that, not only elude to the type of histories above, most importantly allows for experience of my work across age and culture boundaries. The texture of my materials evokes a sensory experience and suggest a sensory existense. The most memorable moment with my own work, supprising is not one of artisanship but one of an unprevocked moment of children playing with the art pieces as if the pieces summoned them to touch, manipulate and respond to them. It was as if the students had entered a bowling alley, a doll house or a costume box upon entering the gallery. The same types of experience that I had enjoyed in my own work in private, I witnessed others partake in. Within this sensory experience the desire of touch is enacted by the nature of the texture and materials used in my work. Paradoxically, the most inviting ellement of the work, the deisre to touch it, cannot be satisfied with in a gallery setting. A gallery presentation inhibits this desire, due to the standard 'no touch' rule, and with this inhibition there lies a sense of unexperienced desire or a nagging feeling of wanting what is not to be had.

The conceptual component in my work is also due to the nature of the texture or material used. I see material as a vessel of information suggested by it's original function, origin, or the process of it's formation. An example of this is the dryer lint that created the Laundry Stack(1995-97)to the left, in the images above. Within the lint there are remnants from ordinary daily wear, those remnants form a new and distinct form, separate from its history, yet carry that history with it. When viewed, the stack is a visual strata of time due to the knowledge of what it takes to create each layer of the strata. Formally, we see the separations of values and colors; yet, we all share the activity of laundering and due to this shared activity the strata is seen as a signifier of a process in time.

I find beauty in the simplicity of meaning and form existing as one unified voice. This is a metaphor for authenticity, a voice that remains constant internally and externally. My interest is in materials that can deliver this type of voice. Each project or series of pieces deals with an aspect of authenticity coming from a historical context and delivered via information that is evoked by materials.