Family Affair

My work tends to reflect the undeniably present social contexts in my personal history. At the crux of the social contexts present in my life is the social relationship of the family, whose influence has been one that is undeniable and sturdy. This series of work focuses on the home as the setting for my personal narratives of familial interactions.

The home is a forum for the family as a political, educational, and reproductive body that either consciously or unconsciously transmits crucial information onto its members. Taking the form of a sewn grid, the pieces are constructed by hand out of found household fabrics and a waxy protective layer to simulate the process by which families create and protect their products. I want describe those transactions as, at once, systematic and irregular.

Family Affair

Found household fabrics, wax

54"x54"

2009

Printstallation

Installation work at Purdue.

Place of Origin

Used Household fabrics, beeswax, sticks

9'x8'

2009

My work examines the notion of beginnings. This "house" is a short story about my family—its interactions, multiplicities, reciprocities, similarities, differences, tensions, connections, structures, functions, and dysfunctions—and its beginnings, which take place in the home. Recognizing the crucial role of multiples as sources in planning, collecting, molding, expanding, shrinking, constructing, and deconstructing, this family story relates the outcome of endeavors to their beginnings.

Wall pieces

The following are works created within the past couple months. I use polyester fabric and cover it in wax. In addition, I incorporate as many "household" fabrics as possible to reference the home or the "origin." More later.

I just finished up my residency at Elsewhere Artist Collaborative in Greensboro, NC. For 3 weeks I worked on a community art project involving the idea of art as a medium for art experiences through conversations. I made 100 bundles out of fabrics found at Elsewhere, previously a thrift store for decades. I placed a question in each bundle and then I distributed them to the public. The project was successful, to my relief, and I learned a lot about the potential of people, including my own potential.

For more info, here is the blog I kept while in North Carolina: http://erikavillarreal.vox.com/

more wood drawings