Artist Talk: The In-between and Erasure - Art, Language and Rendering

Work in progress by Sieva Smith- Untitled for Now- Still in the beginning phases of development. The background is filled with daisies to represent innocence, and as they fall to the viewer's right side, they symbolize the fading of innocence. The teenager's face is concealed, only showing the eyes- hardened and slightly alarmed, as if they were just caught. Many parts are unresolved, but I wanted to share this process because it's becoming a meaningful piece to me about the erasure of innocence through life choices and the hardened perception of society.

As I have started creating these new personal pieces, I've used flowers to convey a visual language that adds texture to the emotional landscape of these pieces. As these pieces are still in development, I'm also realizing I, too, am in development. I'm in a space where I'm overcoming a wound of feeling discarded in my work and voice, and emerging from the ground I was thrown in. In some ways, these pieces that are emerging from me today are a part of a deeper wound- that of erasure. Welcome to today's Artist Talk - The In-between and Erasure - Art, Language and Rendering.

Erasure and the fear of it are one of the driving forces behind my creative endeavors, and are a part of my every waking thought. I deeply fear that I'm forgotten, not after I'm gone, but while I'm alive. And I'm very sensitive to the feeling of when I'm met with this. Not only from a cultural or a systematic standpoint, but also from a personal standpoint and an artistic perspective. It is important to me that as I face this wound, I use my hands to create a spotlight on the emotions, vulnerabilities, and even people who face this type of modality. The truth is that, although the works started internally from deep personal feelings of erasure through the envelopment of partnership, to the erasure of deeper aspects through warped perceptions, it has started to transform into general commentary of people, places, spaces, and emotional depths often ignored or even erased from the visual lexicon of our society.

In the pursuit of polish, sometimes the message can be missed or mistaken as unresolved. Of course, as an artist, that can be hurtful, but honestly, I think sometimes my pursuit isn't about excellence but acceptance. I thought that if I just be more, do more, then erasure won't happen to me. And now I'm learning that it doesn't matter. The truth is that sometimes work is subjected to the subjection of voices that are the loudest in the room. And the context can scream at them, but erasure ensues because the eyes are closed to the visual space's loudness.

Nothing worse than feeling the work and it's met with silence. This is the in-between I speak of. When the rendering is being met with observation rooted in perceptive translation that doesn't allow for stretch to see beyond what's there. When in search of soul-digging work, things that really make you look at it and challenge the ego in terms of how things can be perceived, sometimes you have to wade through the silence and closed doors. It requires a journey beyond what is believed to be held by beauty, and a willingness to track the roots of the story.

It is my hope that my fear doesn't come true, that I'm not erased, nor these visual glyphs of commentary. It is my hope that a legacy can be created, thriving, and maintained through these visual transmissions. It is my hope that there is space for raw, poetic work in spaces that can be reached by humanity, in juxtaposition to the need for perfectionism.