Collisions, Slippages and Getting Lost

Abstract

Taking the form of folk-art inspired tableaus, the work of American artist Clare Rojas traverses different media to challenge traditional gender roles in society. Her exhibition We They, We They at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK resonated with my own work as an artist-researcher - not necessarily because of the themes or aesthetic qualities of the work - but because it seemed to function as a form of signification or "˜other"™ language that eludes the strictly communicative or representational. It instead aligned with what I have called a "˜poetic"™ understanding of painting in which one might make meaning (or understand the work to be meaningful) through unknowing, affect and encounter on a more bodily level. Prompted by this research, the writing that follows emerged in the context of wider conversations about writing and art, and the different levels that this interrelation may play out in contemporary art practice - between word and image; text and texture; letter and line.