How we understand things depends so much on habit YET repetition and familiarity get in the way of ever really understanding anything. My artwork is a visual diary about my humorous take on habit, identity, and time. Juggling three part-time jobs in addition to being an artist, spouse, and mother feels like I am living six different lives simultaneously. I constantly try to make sense of the nonsensical through installations, sculptures, and performances. As a pathway to self-inquiry, I meticulously craft ridiculous objects and performances to visually embody the absurdities of my daily experience.
As a parent, often all rationale seems lost, and my job is to try to find it−preferably while making it humorous at the same time. I try to make light of some of the overwhelming emotions associated with parenting. The process of making becomes a performance through sewn gesture drawings paired with repetitive hand embroidery. Both techniques used are deliberate metaphors. Hand embroidery requires a lot of control and repetition−very much like raising children. Likewise, in freehand machine embroidery, the machine wants to move in one direction while I encourage it to sew in a more desirable path. The processes are both a struggle and cathartic−just like working with children.
Process plays a huge role in my art practice. I see methods of making as representation for repetitious actions. For example, Mumbleweed is composed of strips of hand-cut paper covered in hundreds of phrases I found myself saying over and over as a parent. Repeatedly saying the phrases on a daily basis wasn’t absurd enough, so I forced myself to sit and write them again and again as a performance in creating this piece. The sculpture is meant to quietly drift into the corner and go unnoticed just like the countless hours of my parenting words lost to the wind.
My ongoing search for a cohesive identity shows through in my self-portrait work. In #therealme series I embroider over-filtered self-deprecating self-portraits to embody distorted identity posted through social media. The slow repetitive process of embroidery contradicts the immediacy of an Instagram selfie. Additionally, every three years since 2005, my Spare a Square for Unibrow Care project requires me to collect my plucked eyebrow hairs and “draw” a new self-portrait on a square of toilet paper with tweezers. The excessive repetition and extreme dedication taken to complete my visually overwhelming compilations tests the limitations of both my mind and body. Each of these projects is an attempt to gain understanding and control of the events of my life as they are unfolding before me.
You can find images of my portraits intermixed with random moments from my life in my Instagram feed. @holtzchristine