Tanner, Kellam showcase freedom, identity exhibits

Last week’s senior art exhibits were compliments of Tanya Tanner and Tessa Kellam.

Tanner’s exhibit featured a multi-media installation entitled “Breakaway.” The exhibit captures the lives of three young women who were subject to the male domination that was so prevalent during the Depression era.

“I use my Grandmother Roberson and her sisters’ experience to illustrate their struggles,” Tanner said. “The three sisters grew up under the rigid wing of their overprotective widowed father.”

The exhibit allows video, voices and tangible structures to work together in order to create an overall impression. The voices emerge from under three dresses set up in the front of the room, reciting stories from diary entries of the three sisters.

“My exhibit was inspired by Janet Cardiff’s ‘Whispering Room,’” Tanner said. “Each dress takes on the presence of bodies, and participants can identify with each sister as they whisper different stories describing their personal struggles.”

The video portrays the exterior characteristics of the Roberson sisters’ home.

“The video creates a barrier between the viewer and the house by controlling a certain distance between the two,” Tanner said.

Tanner made a point to depict the interactive piece of her exhibit in black in white in order to create feelings of imprisonment and to provide a contrast to colored images that would dramatize the idea of freedom.

The second senior exhibit, by Kellam, is entitled “Stratifying Identity.” Her exhibit contains works comprised of layered text and imagery that explore the institutions of family, religion, ethnicity, class and gender.

“I feel these identities are common to all people,” Kellam said. “The identities are both individual and overlapping, thus my work is at once specific and encompassing.”

Kellam used transparency as a method to achieve a multilayered appearance that emphasizes the many stratums of our identities.

“Each layer builds the composite of our multifaceted identities,” Kellam said. “I first chose images and text that I felt associated best with each social institution, and then painted or screen printed them on to the material.”

Kellam credits her sociological research as having the most influence on her work.

“I was also inspired by discussions with people about their life experiences as they relate to my chosen five identities,” Kellam said. “Another influence has been artist Julie Mehretu. Her method of incorporating signs and symbols into her drawings and painting to discuss social concerns creates a scattered, layered approach to her work.”

Although “Stratifying Identity” is based on only five identities within society, Kellam realized through this show the interdependent nature of these identities.

“Human make-up is a composition of several identities and their interactions,” Kellam said. “It is these interactions as well as our individual experiences with identity that create our personal selves.”

Kellam strives to portray the complicated nature of identity through her work.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 29 2005. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry