18 July 2009
Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Symbolization is the practice of investing 'things' with symbolic meaning. For Invest we invited a group of 5 female artists who, actively or passively, explore the act of symbolization. Artists featured: Sonja Koczula(Germany), Lauren Hacker(USA), Stefanie Ford(Canada), Emily Wolf(USA), Loren Siems(USA).
Sonja Koczula paintings reveal her interest in the specific dynamics of the different self-developed character shapes and symbols. Her paintings convey impressions of movement and thus of space and of time. Lauren Naftel Hacker’s ceramic works are frilly renditions of your grandma’s household tabletop wear, which mock popular culture and embrace stereotypes. Gossip is a powerful part of our culture; it is what keeps some communities afloat and what destroys others. Stephanie Ford’s drawings are filled with characters that become modern archetypes, fulfilling the needs to have a hero, the victim, a Madonna. Emily Wolf’s work has been exploring relationships for years personal relations with her past, as well as universal external relationships. She unabashedly forms an emotional connection with her work, which is given to the audience as a labor of love. Loren Siems has the power to make the audience feel as if they are playmates in her colorful world of reflection, only to find out that they are an observer privileged to read her diary. The end results are a visual presentation of an internal struggle beneath a saccharin surface.
