Art Room will begin its 2019 exhibition season with a dynamic collaborative photography project that explores the psychological states and cultural interpretation of female identity in Perform La Femme by Angilee Wilkerson and Jana C. Perez running January 15 to February 28, 2019.
Wilkerson and Perez use posture and performance in their work to deconstruct persona and empower the female story. This series uses collaboration between the two artists who enact roles; performing in partnership and using their own middle-aged bodies as models to emphasize the dualities and entanglements in their lives as women.
Perform La Femme supersedes the male gaze and stereotypical young female form and provides a rich and complex narrative about female camaraderie and experience. The photographic tableaus Wilkerson and Perez create express a range of environments and atmospheric lighting. With great intention through recurring color palettes, body gesture, and symbolic objects, the artists take on a myriad of enigmatic characters as narratives emerge that are simultaneously Delphic and revealing.
Through their collaboration, the artists find commonalities and differences within personal experiences, becoming each other’s muse and teacher, while finding a deeper, communal understanding of life. As the artists create a stage that transports them into a state of imagination and child-like play of “dress-up,” they find camaraderie that empowers a shared voice and sense of freedom to act out an evolving story for the gaze of the camera’s lens. Perform La Femme deconstructs cultural ideals and empowers experiential knowledge of female identity within a predominantly patriarchal society.
The artists would like to thank both The Puffin Foundation and The Department of Visual Arts, Texas Woman’s University for their generous support. Art Room is open to the public and will host an opening reception on January 17, 2019, 6-9 p.m., as well as a closing reception on February 23, 2019.
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