Date of Submission

Spring 2022

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Project Advisor 1

Sam Vernon

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Artist Statement

“Barking With The Dog” got its’ title from a poem by Leonard Cohen:

I never really understood

what he said

but every now and then

I find myself

barking with the dog

or bending with the irises

or helping out

in other little ways

“Barking With The Dog” is a series of illustrative collages, linocut prints, an upcycled bench containing personal artifacts, drawings and collage on the walls and floor. These pieces are connected through visual content, physical medium, and artistic intention. The collages are made using upcycled prints and drawings. These pieces represent the early stages of a narrative and a process of world-building through drawings and print. In the final installation, prints from the same plate featured as collaged elements in the larger pieces are hung in accompaniment.

The past year has been challenging for me emotionally and spiritually; I think a lot of this work is about loss, while also gaining a new sense of myself. The items in the bench are a mix of my own and those I inherited from my father, being books and other items. Science fiction appeals to me because it creates a space to imagine completely different or altered realities.

The protagonists are the omnipotent Swirly Dog, and his gender-amorphous humanoid decapitated friend. The details of their origin as a duo are unclear, so it’s a story I hope to excavate. Swirly Dog’s origins are more concrete. In an altered universe, Swirly is the offspring of primordial beasts Leviathan (Lev-eye-ah-thin) and Behemoth (Be-he-muth) who are from the Tanakh. While Swirly Dog might have the power to reign chaos and destroy the world, he tries his best not to make too much of a mess. I hope the viewers of this work find it humorous and absurd, as well as memory laden, through the color, negative space, exploring the transparency and weight of paper, textiles and thread, upcycled and recontextualized materials and the use of characters.

Open Access Agreement

Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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