ARTIST STATEMENT
I deploy irony and the abject to ponder the soul-crushing banalities of what many might term “women’s work.” It’s funny with a serrated edge. The subjects of my artwork revolve around historical ‘pink collar’ or ‘second shift’ labor (cleaning, class, and caregiving). The use of fibers and textiles supports the work conceptually as the materials and processes (sewing, crochet, tufting, and other hand working) are traditionally coded as “women’s work.” With tongue planted firmly in cheek, I form sites of transgression and resistance. The materials –often purchased from Jo-Anne’s clearance section– supports the underpinnings of the conceptual implications. I render domestic artifacts in a larger-than-life scale that is flaccid, floppy, slouching, and ultimately spineless, wrinkling in way that only cheap sequins, thin sparkly spandex, and scraps of oil-slick vinyl can. The cycles of domestic labor and the abject (within the work I employ the definition of “abject” as the point where there is a breakdown in the delineation between Self and Other), with particular attention given to the body and role of cleaning or caregiving.
Conceptually, the work surrounding feminist labor is increasingly focused on a subtle and persistent revolt as it examines the mundane within domestic discontent. The works subvert the aesthetics of the clad midwestern family: syrupy and quixotic in a palette that reflects an exaggerated, cloying sweetness while maintaining a cheapness or artificiality.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Allison Baker is an Associate Professor of Fine Art- Sculpture in the Herron School of Art at Indiana University Indianapolis. Allison is a first-generation college student that earned her MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work is situated from lived experience within American class structures, gender, and poverty. Allison does not seek to create with a laser-focused clarity or awareness of intentions and material choices but from within what Bourdieu would call a subordinated position as “the working-class ‘aesthetic’ is a dominated aesthetic;” because she is trailer trash that likes shiny things and sleazy things and nacho cheese
© Allison Baker