Sometimes instead of an interview I rather let an artist directly speak on work of theirs I've discovered scrolling online. Work I feel is remarkable to share here on AG TrapHaus. I love when I can ask an artist to tell me about a piece and they shoot me a paragraph in record time. Introducing Sydney Teare and her colorful Woman-creature series of mixed media creations.
"My Woman-creature series is a mixed-media venture into ideas about femininity and womanhood that I’ve been exploring in larger acrylic paintings (Stuck, Unveiling, and Maddie Wearing Lipstick.) So far, it features three canvases adorned with pieces of my own clothing to create “skirts” with multiple legs protruding underneath. The colors of the canvases are reminiscent of the paint I and many other girls had on our bedroom walls growing up. I like to think of each piece as its own “creature,” a woman with her own experiences and feelings. Each of the legs are cut from magazines, advertisements, and books that I find, which helps me contextualize the lives of the creatures I’m creating: one leg from a woman advertising pricy heels that cause her to stumble and limp, another from a girl in a news story running a marathon, another from an old cracked antique baby doll, and so on. I love working with found imagery because the medium itself opens up interesting lines of thought—what does it mean to have whole industries dedicated to disseminating images of women, and what do the types of women we portray and how we portray them say about us? It’s satisfying to be able to pick and choose specific parts of these pictures and rearrange them in ways that create new meanings. I intend to keep exploring these ideas for a long time, because humans will continue to be depicted in photos and in art, and I think those images are some of the best records of how we feel about and treat other human beings."
Woman-creature 1
5"x7" Magazine clippings and acrylic on canvas
Woman-creature 2
4"x12" Magazine clippings and acrylic on canvas
Woman-creature 3
5"x7" Magazine clippings and acrylic on canvas