MARIA COHEN
The main objective of my research is to speculate about sexuality through the practice, as a permanent process of producing art to express sexual energy as pain, anger, or anxiety. Feminism informs my identity as a woman; the politics of this allows me to be free to explore sexuality in my practice which is in itself the function of legacy.
As Trasey Amin I reject discussion of the feminist authority in my work, and yet I engage directly with modern female identity.
I am exploring sexuality through my own identity. I approach my practice as an experience, a physical and almost performative moment: every piece of art, every artistic gesture, or a manifest is a way to overcome embarrassment to accept vulnerability, weakness, and fragility. All my practice is a trial to unfold my own sexuality, reflect and aware it as a power. This immersive experience is therefore an investigation of myself through time. I use language as a visual expression of my own identity. The ongoing process of developing ideas through multidisciplinary practices intuitively leads me to speak those truths which I believe and know beyond understanding.
Through the practice, I am unfolding my sexual identity with pain, anxiety, and frustrations. I am coming across boundaries and traps which I have been a part of for years because of belonging to Russian and Jewish identity. Art allows the violation of social norms, and in turn a way for viewers to enter into sharing the human social condition - often in a controlled environment. The process leads me to look fears in the eye, be aware of the voice through anxiety and frustrations, and acknowledge my power, hidden deeper inside the body. Repetitions and symbolism are saving energy, balancing, and controlling emotional and rational parts of me. The image of a bunny is an alter-ego of me and an ambiguity of human nature. I deform it making it more comprehensive or opposite confusing for reading, like sound or invisible vibration. Within layers, I unfold sexuality and push struggles out of my body with blots, strikes, erasures, and an expressionistic or graffiti vibrant painting. Through the practice, I identify myself as a woman neither only a social role and status and responsibilities as a national, a daughter, or a wife. But also as an artist or a human being who express feelings with tools and meanings. My work addresses the human condition in personal but also accessible to a broad audience. Whether I work is in video, sound, or painting, I use the media appropriate to a message and communicate directly and unambiguously. This quality in my works gives the viewer access to layers of narrative and meaning that are both intimate and universal. According to Audre Lorde it means using erotic as a power, which means to be responsible for deepest feelings and not giving up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society.
Layers
Each layer deals with a fear. Fear is pain... each layer deals with the pleasure of the voyeur, the thrill of looking and being looked at.
I refer to Louise Bourgeois practice .....
In my case all painting - and over time, the more it becomes so - is accident. So I foresee it in my mind I see things around as layers transcendental, surreal like past, present and future mix with each other and give a result as an invisible energy. Media transforms it itself. It always blurring, sensual, sometime with no words and visible contours other time it is annoyingly precise, solid and understandable but still hide a sense inside of it. In painting I use very large brushes and in the way I work I don’t in fact know very often what the paint will do, and it does many things which are very much better than I could make it do. In working with photos I do not mind about result, videos gives me a chance to catch a moment of vibration, digitally I can adjust sketches drawing physically multitude times and in the way I work I don’t in fact know very often what the paint will do, and does many things which are very much better than I could make it do.
I am trying to trap the fact, because after all, artist always were, are and will obsessed by life and by certain things that obsess them that I want to record. And I create systems and construct the cages in which I trap feelings and emotions.
In my practice sexuality, anxiety, and other powerful emotions drive forces in the creative process. The idea of taking a break traps me with fears and frustrations. In my mind, the idea to stop the process is the same as death.
In terms of the political aspect, the idea of being trapped considers as a lack of choices. Be trapped means to be driven by someone and conceiving do something with no choice but to refuse. Producing art in time might be reviewed as a trap as well with options and paths. It emerges because it is out of itself from taboos, political restrictions, social dogmas.
Time is a prison or a trap - not being able to escape from the present.
"Each cell deals with fear. Fear is pain... each cell deals with the pleasure of the voyeur, the thrill of looking and being looked at."
The cells attract or repel each other, and create an urgent need in the visitor to combine, merge or disintegrate the pieces.
Referring to Louis Bourgeois's statement Cells was directed by a desire for a particular physical confrontation. In my practice, traps are physical confrontation among chaos and stability, duty, and desire. I consider cells in my practice as traps. Loise Bourgeois built cells like prisons where she embedded her memories, life, sufferings, fears, weakness, and anger. It seems controversial: because society identifies the prison-like punishment and suffering, but in contrast, a tiny cell is a place of security and safety, but also degradation.
I consider this sentence from the side of sensual context and desire to getting out from a cage. The cell keeps me inside, forces me to search for answers and be aware of them. Within diverse visual languages and layers them one on top of another, I express pain. Then I erase them with vibrant frustrating gestures and blots. Then traps it again and again with paints layers, scratches on top vibrations, and a provocative sexual gesture. Every layer traps expressions from the past and puts a new one on top, creating a logical thread of creative reflections. I like the idea of being seen by someone. It is also about pleasure and sex. I see something perverse in this. Through those expressions, a human being shows the face of oneself with desires, fantasies, and strength to control emotions, but at the same time to be brave enough to show personal imperfection.
Examples of using layers in practice
Performance "Unfolding Identity"
Identification sexuality through practice
Audre Lorde told that it is necessary for those folks who write to scrutinize not only the truth of what to speak but the truth of that language by which they speak it.
I use language as a visual expression of my own identity. The ongoing process of developing ideas through multidisciplinary practices intuitively leads me to speak those truths which I believe and know beyond understanding.
And it is never without fear - of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death.