Rebekka Herrington

Dear You
pillows, letters to significant other
72 x 60 x 24 in.

Personal narratives and invented systems provide the framework for an investigation into private relationships. Text from the artist’s email, diaries and letters are applied to walls or objects. The content is intimate, revealing personal relationships and private conflicts. Issues of love and identity contrast with the cold formality of the work, but behind the austere presentation lies a system whereby text is investigated through word counts, statistics and complex relationships that further neutralize the personal and organize the subjective. A borrowed format, be it a notational system, bank statement, or pop-culture object, reveals wholes in communication, suggesting that words do not expose the ‘truth’. “Dear You” balances truth and deceit, formality and domesticity, power and uncertainty, as letters to the artist’s significant other expose more than romantic conflict, but also inner conflict as to what defines a woman, an artist, a lover.

© Rebekka Herrington