Carolyn Bendel - Warp
Drawing, Installation, Painting, Sculpture
Chaotic and catastrophic events are increasing all over the world at a parabolic rate. Thousands of jobs are being lost. Houses are being foreclosed upon and left vacant. The seams of our great and powerful nation are unraveling. The fragility of our homes, culture, and earth as a whole is now clear. A cultural wasteland and a collapsing society are moving from an imagined future possibility into reality. This state of tension, this power struggle between nature and man; people and state; war and peace; rich and poor is spiraling out of control. When I look at our global state, I see tattered strings, a devalued cultural and humanistic state with little or no regard for the environment that encapsulates us. Our culture is “hanging on by a thread.” During this unstable and amorphous time, what is the role of the artist? As artists, we use our sensitivities to the environment and our ability to illustrate the unpredictable, the uncomfortable, and the grotesque so we may bring in focus the reality of the current state in which we live. This chaos not only external but internal as well is felt within the body, a visceral feeling of unease and sickness from the bottom of the gut. It is a feeling of disgust and frustration. A woozy, swirling that sours the face and contracts muscles. It is internalized sensation that provides the energy behind my artwork. This sensation is a ceaseless discomfort in my own skin. Through research and investigation, I have realized this to be a larger societal skin. The root of my work is my need to cathartically translate my internal feelings into a physical and visual form. My work is a visual documentation of the chaos and frustration I feel within my environment.