Vitae Cyclum | Gallery at the Park
In JHS' March 2021 show, Vitae Cyclum, at the Gallery at the Park she proposes the viewer consider an artwork as having a life cycle of its own and the definitions of beauty itself.
The show consists of large scale pieces displaying oil painted female figures posed in self-defined expressions of beauty, set in unconventional multimedia backgrounds meant to evolve with time. The artist’s fascination with science, the chemical reactions of color and its longevity, aids in her collection of plant matter, fungi, minerals, spices, and metals for her creation of the pigments used in her work. Her experimental process is documented throughout the show as smaller works interspersed between larger paintings.
Uniquely, each work's underlying chemistry subtly evolves according to its environment, and with it, so does the viewer’s experience. Her art is concerned with the metamorphosis of beauty as time marches toward the inevitable end of existence. It is a celebration of the course of life and the idea that all is in a perpetual state of transformation.
She uses the contrast of intended change and intended preservation to frame her concept. In each piece the juxtaposition of oil paint on handcrafted pigments immortalize the female figure’s definition of self beauty while the work’s surrounding background evolves with its environment. Stoker’s proposition of one’s self-defined beauty is meant to strike the debate over the concept of ‘gaze’—the depiction of a figure in arts or literature from the viewer's perspective as an object for the viewer’s pleasure. Just like the artist’s material juxtaposition, while times change, cultural views shift, and the female herself ages, the depiction of her self-defined beauty remains unchanged.
The show consists of large scale pieces displaying oil painted female figures posed in self-defined expressions of beauty, set in unconventional multimedia backgrounds meant to evolve with time. The artist’s fascination with science, the chemical reactions of color and its longevity, aids in her collection of plant matter, fungi, minerals, spices, and metals for her creation of the pigments used in her work. Her experimental process is documented throughout the show as smaller works interspersed between larger paintings.
Uniquely, each work's underlying chemistry subtly evolves according to its environment, and with it, so does the viewer’s experience. Her art is concerned with the metamorphosis of beauty as time marches toward the inevitable end of existence. It is a celebration of the course of life and the idea that all is in a perpetual state of transformation.
She uses the contrast of intended change and intended preservation to frame her concept. In each piece the juxtaposition of oil paint on handcrafted pigments immortalize the female figure’s definition of self beauty while the work’s surrounding background evolves with its environment. Stoker’s proposition of one’s self-defined beauty is meant to strike the debate over the concept of ‘gaze’—the depiction of a figure in arts or literature from the viewer's perspective as an object for the viewer’s pleasure. Just like the artist’s material juxtaposition, while times change, cultural views shift, and the female herself ages, the depiction of her self-defined beauty remains unchanged.