Michelle Dickson
August 7-29, 2015
Neither Mine Nor Yours
Contemplation of time and mortality is not new in my work, but in “Neither Mine Nor Yours” there is a more inward approach. This series of sculptures uses the form of the self-portrait to investigate identity and my place in a world where the future seems more uncertain than ever. The uncertainty ever-present in life has been a driving force behind my work. Confronting and accepting a constantly evolving state of change has been a recurring theme.
The sculptures start with a plaster cast of my face that is then paired with a piece of wood. The wood was gathered on numerous hikes in the DC and Baltimore area and what happens in the studio is intuitive. My process involves making something and responding to it, adding on and taking away, building up and obscuring. In “Neither Mine Nor Yours” ones relationship with and connection to nature has come forward in ways that I haven’t considered in the past. I have long been interested in the similarity found in shape and texture across different parts of life- especially how the structure of rivers are like highways, veins, and root systems along with the similarity between skin and bark. Just as the contemplation of time and mortality has turned inward in this body of work, so has my exploration of nature. Previous bodies of work have focused on the effect of time on nature, with its cycles of growth, death, and decay. In “Neither Mine Nor Yours” , the effect of the human footprint on the environment is also investigated. The paradox of “man’s destruction of the environment, he needs to survive” rises to the forefront. And with that there is an overarching sense of fragility- both of the body and of the world around us.
Michelle Dickson is a Baltimore based mixed media artist working in drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Dickson received an MFA in 2011 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has had solo and group exhibitions across the United States among them: Maryland, Chicago, Illinois, Florida, Boston Massachusetts, New Jersey, Providence Rhode Island, and Brooklyn, New York. She was recently included in the Baltimore Artist + WPA exhibition curated by Mera Rubell at Marianne Boesky Gallery in NYC. She was a resident at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Silver Spring, MD and at Art 342 in Ft. Collins, CO. Currently she is a resident at School 33 Art Center in Baltimore, MD. She will be having an upcoming exhibition at Julio Fine Arts Gallery, Loyola University, Baltimore, MD.
