ARTIST STATEMENT
I am trying to free myself from a blind faith in a firm “phallacy”; my work is a way of laughing through the struggle. My video installations are satirical self portraits that dig into everything from my conservative upbringing to my liberal adult life and all of the hypocrisy in between. Printing, performing, painting, filming, animating, sculpting, making–I construct a land of clunking machinery and clacking heels. Looping videos with no resolution invite the viewer to witness my purgatory: an endless parade of rage/shame/complicity/rebellion clad in “Penis Pumps.” I am surrounded by, blinded by, oblivious of, and assaulted by–dicks. I beckon you to a world influenced by a media-controlled society–one marinated in a stew of misogyny, porn, twisted body images, and rape culture. Join me in the personal, political, silly, sexual, comfortably uncomfortable land that is about what drives me as much as it is about what holds me back.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jeanna Mead is a visual artist and educator working in sculpture, installation, performance, and video. She teaches sculpture at the University at Albany, and has participated in a number of exhibitions. Jeanna has earned the MFA Departmental Commendation Award, the Roanne Kulakoff Award in recognition of her artwork, and the Steve Street Award for her commitment to social justice issues. She currently lives in upstate New York, where the artistic debris of her practice tends to spill into her kitchen, much to the chagrin of her husband, two sons, four cats, and dog.
© Jeanna Mead