Jennifer Hines

Halted Moments: Reflection (prayer)
woven blanket, plaster, glue

Despite the fact that each person may experience similar things in their lives, I feel that every person creates a unique existence through their subtle choices made in everyday tasks, taking them on a slightly different path and forming an alternate life from someone else. I am interested in exploring how my actions, reactions, memories, movements, and habits reflect my individual identity. By showing private aspects of my life and body in a public space that becomes sacred or ritualistic, I am showing that these mundane acts are a unique reflection of who I am, and the viewer is confronted with the fact that their own personality, no matter how hard they try to conceal or divulge it, is revealed in unconscious ways through their life choices. While I am publicly revealing intimate parts of my life, my work also shows the restraint in which we interact with others, showing intimate aspects of my life and body, but then masking them in order to remove myself from a vulnerable place. This tension is part of our everyday routine with the world—by playing with the viewer’s access to information, my artwork more aptly reflects how people interact with each other.

Halted Moments: reflection (prayer) is a piece that is made directly from my body and explores the idea of one moment of a person’s life frozen in time. The piece was made by draping a plaster- and glue-soaked blanket over my body in a specific pose, a pose of prayer or reflection. Upon viewing the piece, the viewer finds this is just an empty shell, but wonders what the person who has left it behind may have been thinking about during that frozen moment. This piece becomes both haunting and enigmatic, a ghost of someone’s life that can be projected onto, as a character in a story, but the idea of the “truth” will always evade the viewer.

© Jennifer Hines