ARTIST STATEMENT
My sculptural and collaged paintings explore the roles of women and domesticity through identity and collective histories. Through the layering of material and images, I conceal and reveal information to address the effects of perception and memory, particularly when they become distorted over time. I am interested in how public and private spaces inform the way we portray ourselves and our identities. Lace is a material and symbol for femininity, which I incorporate into my work. I question its historical significance, and how its meaning has changed over time, as it was originally considered during the sixteenth century to represent absurd wealth due to its intricate labor. Lace evokes nostalgic memories of significant life-changing occasions, from celebrating a Christening or joyous wedding celebration to mourning and grieving the loss of a loved one. I am also interested in the formal properties of lace, particularly how it can simultaneously reveal and conceal the body. I use this as a metaphor explicitly in these paintings and sculptures for hiding, masking, and choosing to unveil some truths to the public eye while keeping the viewer out of reach. I create distance between the viewer and the artist through the materiality of the oil and acrylic paintings, using lace, chiffon, tulle, crystal organza, and plexiglass to show how memories can be distant and come in and out of view. Additionally, I explore ephemeral beauty while also questioning in what ways the lines of girlhood and womanhood blur, become intertwined, and even forced together.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I was born and raised in Illinois. I attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I obtained my BFA in Painting, while minoring in creative writing with a poetry emphasis. I’m currently attending Boston University as an MFA Painting graduate student. I come from a diverse background in musical theater, orchestra, band, choir, and dance. I hold interests in poetry, painting, sculpting, music, fashion, film, and photography. I am a published author of my poetry book “Mellifluous Critiques.” In my free time I love composing music on piano, guitar, and violin. I am an avid reader and enjoy poetry, non-fiction, fiction, and memoirs. During my early life I gravitated towards writing and initially planned to major in English. I didn’t take up painting until my senior year of high school. Afterwards, I immediately knew that painting was my calling and ultimate passion. While I enjoy representational painting, I gravitate towards abstract painting and its spontaneity, ambition, and challenge that it brings me. Abstract art challenges me to create without viewing a tangible form. As a result, all of my paintings are improvised. The exciting part about creating abstract paintings, is that you never know the exact end result of a painting; trusting in the process and following my intuition, has been the most important factor to my abstract painting process.
© Linda Obobaifo