Good Evening Interwebs!
Newest video:
It's Work from J.R. Uretsky on Vimeo.
Title: It's work
I should probably talk about how I got to this point...you know, the point where I frequently put sort-of-naked videos of myself on the interwebs. I have always been interested in how sculpture affects one's physical space while also having the ability to do something to a viewer's mental and emotional space as well. I am very interested in the emotional aspect of all that. While in grad school I came to grips with the fact that I am a bit of a creep, in that I like to watch / read people ... constantly ... and that I am deeply affected by people's body language, gestures, mannerisms, etc.
Extend Exchange series: For Eleanor, 2011
I would make sculptures such as my sculpture titled For Eleanor that were inspired by my interactions with others. However, when asked what my work was about I would never have an answer. I never considered these sculptures portraits, they were closer to prayers.
From my thesis:
I make abstract sculptures about my relationship to specific people. Each sculpture is a window into how I experience an individual. I am never really sure for whom the window is made, the person the sculpture is about or me. This sort of self-satisfying engagement with others reminds me of prayer. I used to pray from my friends and family. Prayer was a comforting verbal expression, to God, of my gratitude for the people around me. My exchange with God ceased, but the exercise of gratitude never did. Perhaps that is why these tiny constructions come so naturally to me. Sculpture is my language and the installation Extend/ Exchange is still a set of prayers; I have just exchanged one language for another.
This has been a part of my practice for a long time (see: Eleanor 2008, I Put Her on the Shelf 2006, Abba Abba 2010 .. and so on and so on). After making It's Work I FINALLY understood that even though there was an extremely emotional attitude to my sculptures, over all they are just kind of wonderfully formal and funny. It was a difficult conclusion to come to, considering I had poured my heart into works like Size 6, a piece "about" the time I was so depressed I dropped from a 14 to a size 6 in a summer or Shut Up, Speak Up that, for me, illustrated quite clearly why my engagement to a wonderful man ended. The bottom line was that I wanted (still want) my work to be rich with dichotomy. The work should elicit both humor/joy and profound sadness. Why? Because, that is what I am feeling when I make the shit and I want people to relate to me goddaminit!
Anyhoo, this video It's Work, is getting closer ... ?? It started with a difficult conversation with someone, went through a few edits, then I took my pants off and crawled inside of this sculpture that I made. BAM ART! When I think about this piece now, it seems far removed from the original conversation; however, I still like to think some of the feelings transfered over from conversation to weird ass video.
Ugh, yeah. Swinging the art bat in the dark until I hit something.
I am getting really interested in:
setting up structures/tasks for myself where I fail and video taping it
"queering" a body - whatever the fuck that means
the monstrous body - objects attached to the body that make them different, strange, freakish (queering?)
giving gifts / art as gift
celebrating people via abstract sculpture
doing more private performances where the audience is small, specific and sometimes nonexistent
I am reading this book:
Queer the Art of Failure
And am liking at these artists:
John Wood and Paul Harrison
1 comment:
Jamie,
It is wonderful to read more of your thoughts/knowledge on the work you have been producing. I love your sentence: "The work should elicit both humor/joy and profound sadness." I totally get that in your pieces, both of the sculptures and videos. At first, I was having a harder time comprehending the videos and was naturally drawn more towards your sculptures (I think because that is where we left off at Biola) but the last few seconds of "It's Work," where you slump to the ground really make me feel something. Watching your knees walk the hard wood floors and your hands searching for the foam--it all ending in that final movement is really fantastic.
It is so great to see how you have been moving forward in your work--I cannot imagine all that you have learned and experienced these last few years in grad school and it is good to receive a glimpse to your brain. I must say, I am beyond impressed. Your resilience to your work/message is phenomenal. Well done.
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