Contributing Artist/Curator

Amina Ross

Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:

Through a combination of video, photo, sculpture and installation works, The Body, Manifold explores normative embodiment while highlighting the construction of meaning embedded within the various spaces bodies inhabit. These works are influences by the paradox of simultaneous hypervisibilty and invisibility within critical race theory, queer conception of (dis) embodiment and artist Amina Ross’ own lived experience as a “brown femme queer woman”. Body Con [dress] (2004), confronts the inconsistencies in public nudity laws and social code to reveal the image of the artists naked body while masking her own physical body. There is a tangible separation between the image of an object, the image of the artists’ body, and the physical object of the body itself. Within Peep Show (2014), the viewer enters a playfully stages environment, a scene of two cropped feminine torsos pillow-fighting. This staged action referenced countless commercial interpretations of feminine intimacy, the image is juxtaposed with two candid portraits of the models’ faces, while at rest in-between takes – the viewer is confronted with the gaze. Each piece is dedicated to the transparency of process, the use of quotidian materials – house paint, nails. pillows, mirrors – and familiar images to create quasi-immersive spaces that may be deconstructed and revealed upon prolonged viewing. This body of work explores the simultaneous sensuality and violence present in the capture, production, and reproduction of an image. It is reflective of Ross’ image-making practice where she adopts a performative and collaborative process while consciously bearing in mind the traditional roles and identities of the director, doctor, salesperson, performer – the artist aims to subvert these roles by creating safe yet challenging means of production. In The Body, Manifold tensions are palpable. Seduction and repulsion are present, positions of exhibitionist and voyeur are occupied, both intimacy and alienation are felt. The viewer’s primary interaction with the works within the show is as an outsider, they are not encouraged to touch works however they are tempted. The viewer’s interactions with the work are embedded with the politics of looking, seeing and being seen.