MANDEM

GIFT: Exegesis

 

In German, 'gift' means 'poison'. Inspired by auto-antonymous imagery, the exegesis here is a critical unfolding of the relationship between poisons and gifts. It includes visual (and literary) explorations of exiled gods, sacred tricksters, apotropaic monsters, healing serpents, and resurrection through dismemberment. It’s about embracing both sides of a binary and living within liminal spaces: conceptual and visceral, authentic in its forgeries, fragile and unbreakable, distant and immediate.

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The physical ingredients include imitation parchment, animal hides, kudzu leaves, dog bones and teeth, antique book pages (real and forged), photographs, inks, encaustic, gold-leaf, and snakeskin. The book's inability to be entirely honest about its own materiality is part of the concept.

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A Wish That I May Come Amongst You

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This series of prints was originally released as "A Wish That I May Come Amongst You," a limited-edition artist book comprised of prints on cotton fiber paper, presented in a hand-decorated wooden box and accompanied by a short film on DVD, available exclusively through the Dayton Visual Arts Center's inaugural CSA(rt) program.

 

This first series of prints revolved around the different archetypal fairy-tale narratives surrounding children and childbirth. Currently the series is being slowly expanded to include new sets with other sets of fairy-tale/mythological types, starting with a series of heroes.