Stephanie Martz


a sense of duration
ink and collage on paper, 12" x 9"

2009

 

the geometry of solitude
mylar on paper , 12" x 9"

2009

 

spatial uncertainty
mixed media on paper, 9" x 12"

2009

 

this house is full of breath
mylar on paper, 9" x 12"

2009

 

Statement on Artwork
The series, Abandoned Decay, uses imagery from a dilapidated house as a metaphor for the affects of disease on a person’s body and identity. An abandoned house deteriorates itself just like a disease deteriorates the body it inhabits. The collages’ titles reference the body and the affects of illness on the body, allowing the images of the house to be understood as connected to an intimate experience of the body and illness. They distort images of recognizable domestic spaces and contain doublings of images implying the doppelganger, a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshy counterpart. Susan Sontag writes about an ill person as having a dual citizenship, one in the land of health and another in illness. These collages invoke these ideas and reveal the confusion and anxiety that can result to a person’s identity when his/her body is inhabited by a disease.