Riley Fowler
Painting
My body of work combines performative installation art with concepts of the abject, identity and trauma. The majority of what I create are monster-like masks and sculptures, which often use trypophobia on the skin to create a wounded diseased appearance. When displayed, I often have a video projection playing on top of my physical work. The video performances vary, but always feature me wearing or creating my artwork, sometimes including poetry. Since the artwork I create is about my traumatic experiences, disgust is a very important aspect in my art practice. Trauma is disgusting, and I want to replicate the uncomfortableness of that psychological pain.
I use paper mache, dry-wall plaster and acrylic paint because the flexibility of the material creates organic forms, especially when I am creating holes. The use of trypophobia (the fear of holes) on the skin is representative of the holes in my identity, and gaps created in my memory. After it is painted and shaped I seal it with rubber or glue, because it creates a wet-look on the surface while also protecting the work. The wetness helps highlight the representation of bodily fluids, waste and blood.
A major theme in my artwork is based on Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject. The abject is what the body must reject in order to test the notion of self, such as vomit, blood, feces, urine, mucus and diseases. I ‘abjectify’ myself to represent this ‘otherness’ I have always embodied due to trauma. I think of trauma and abject bodily fluids as metaphors for each other. I would argue the “vomit” will always be part of me, the same way the trauma I have endured is inseparable from myself due to its heavy psychological impact. The other biggest influence in my artwork is the use of repetition, in both theme and discipline. The repetitive use of holes in my art is to illustrate the unconscious language of trauma. Survivors of trauma will often need to repeatedly retell their stories, and will often end up in similar traumatic experiences, thus repeating the cycle.
For my future projects I plan on combining disgust with absurdity with my performance artwork. Instead of exploring the feelings of disgust with trauma, I want to use the coping mechanism of humor, while highlighting the difficulties of functioning normally in society as a traumatized person. Ideally I would love to collaborate with other like-minded individuals and create short films intersecting these themes.
Revolting Cycles
Revolting Cycles; is a collection of six masks which explores the idea of the Slave Revolt Mentality. Which is where we redefine our suffering as being good and as a choice, because we do not have the resources or are too weak to change the circumstances. The masks slowly transform from victim to abuser. In this narrative, the mask becomes wounded, the wound turns into a smile, which becomes “full of shit”, and then turns into vicious teeth. This illustrates the cycle of abuse, and the normalization of violence.
Blending In
Trauma is not a “one-time” event, it is permanent psychological damage done to the psyche. Instead of highlighting the monstrous features of the masks; which represent the effects of trauma on identity, the masks are painted to blend into the background. This camouflage technique is used to show how people living with trauma have to still function in real life, and blend into society. Camouflage acts as protection, but also conformity.
The video projection shows three locations; home, school, and dollarama. This is to explore three different areas of life, in private, in public, and at work.
G ap s
A video performance and poem exploring the loss of memory due to trauma. This was a reflection on how even though a lot of my memories are blurry or missing, the pain from what has happened has not gone missing with it. These gaps are common in survivors of domestic child abuse, often our brains will purposely forget the memory, or survivors often encounter memory problems through bad coping mechanisms such as substance abuse.
I Am The Vomit
The body uses vomit as a defense mechanism, it is the body’s way of protecting itself, purging what is harmful. The abject is what the body must discard in order to assert itself as other than the waste. The waste which is created from your body, and lives inside your body, isn’t considered part of you once it leaves your body. I think of trauma and abject bodily fluids as metaphors for each other. The vomit will always be part of me, it is me. The same way the trauma I have endured has impacted the way I am, the trauma is inseparable from myself. The blanket is used as a source of comfort. I think a problematic part of being a traumatized person is that we often find comfort in chaos.
Paper Trail
A person pre-sentence report and gladue report are huge factors in determining the accused sentence in court. These reports go over a persons "entire" life, and puts it all on paper. A persons future is dependent on 30 pages, all the shit they have gone through summarized in a couple sentences, reduced to numbers and statistics. These reports are only the shell of the person, a ghost of their past.
Sage
The Indigenous Justice System practices the homogenization of culture. The system was created with the intent to help heal indigenous people heal from intergenerational trauma through reconnecting with their culture and cultural practices. As an Inuk client in the system, there has been zero Inuit programming offered to me, and no Inuk elder has been provided. The cultural programming has been only based in Metis and First Nations practices, such as sage picking.
White Walls
A performance memoir.
