Emma High

ARTIST STATEMENT:

This work explores the relationship of my physical body immersed in an unfamiliar environment. It was created in response to living in Bratislava for the first time knowing neither the language nor geography. Physical movement and film were my way of connecting the dots of my experience and pushing the limits of my own discomfort while adjusting. Setting a task untethered to an end goal was used to emphasize the compounded ambiguities that come with living in a new culture and place. As I struggled to move up the stairway, tied to self-obstruction, I explored emotions of discomfort, anticipation, excitement, and fear - all sensations universally felt within an unknown or liminal experience. Over the course of time in this piece, the viewer can be moved beyond their own associations or ideas of the subject, and transported into a meditative experience as they watch.

Linda Jurkiewicz

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Over the course of 4 months, I painted and printed “blue” words and sewed blue fabric. What started out as a very personal journey, reliving my life in regards to its sadness, began to turn into a more complex expedition. I began to think of my brothers and sisters and the stories I know of their struggles. Then I thought of my mother and her own fight with depression. And then I thought of my friends who have had lives that presented difficult moments and resulting sadness. My quilt process had helped me make a journey that took me from my own pain to a realization that we all live with sadness at one time or another in our life. Not one of us is exempt from this most basic human emotion. I see that I am not alone in this story. Life is easier to bear, not alone.