The Last Breath: Death & Contemporary Art

Maternal Mitochondria will be showing new work at this show with Womenswork.art in Poughkeepsie. It is a vulnerable series, where I photographed my mother in a New Mexican slot canyon (a la Laura Aguilar) after her cancer diagnosis.

Interview With My Mother 3

CURRENTS Festival 2024

My project “Vibrance” will be showing at the Currents New Media Festival this year! A bit about it:

“Vibrance” is a conlang, or artlang (a constructed language) working in the tradition of Tolkien and other conlang enthusiasts. Translate English text into Vibrance, a fully color-based language, by typing in a word on the website and hitting the submit button! Also included is “The Color Manifesto,” which speaks to the nature of color and its relationship to culture.

Collaborators:

John Brown, computer programmer

Tim Brown, fabricator

The Currents festival runs from June 14th-June 23rd.

Current Shows

I am currently in 2 shows that can be viewed online, with some other powerhouse work!

Through the Eye: Women in Photography with Womenswork.Art in Poughkeepsie, NY.

And a particularly exciting online show with Shaping the Figural Gaze.

ARTIST STATEMENT VIDEO

An online response to Bustes de Femmes

“The Gagosian states that the selected group of “paintings, sculptures, and photographs on view demonstrate how the female figure has been reimagined and reconfigured by modern and contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds and traditions,” however, it features only 5 female-identifying artists out of 28 artists total. Of these 28 artists, a majority are white. This leads to an exhibit that not only is lacking in a diversity of backgrounds and traditions, but one that is also blatantly ignoring the conjunctions between race and gender.

Unfortunately, the exhibit put on by the Gagosian is only too representative of past and current norms surrounding the viewpoints society platforms for creation and consumption surrounding the figural.

We wish to counter Bustes de Femmes and the other of 1000s of exhibits like it, by presenting the works of femxle and queer identifying artists whose skill in figural portraiture demonstrates a diverse array of contemporary visions, sensitivities, and/or ideals, that usurp or unconventionally assume the traditional utilization of the male and/or dominant gazes. The goal is to address institutionalized gender roles and gendered racial stereotypes, and the subsequent sexism and racism perpetuated by them. This is in order to facilitate the interrogation and examination of the traditional motives and depictions of gender and sex, while proposing new or uncommon narratives. These ideas will be addressed from queer and femxle perspectives that are traditionally unheard from, in order to reimagine and reconstruct traditional racialized and gendered power structures upon which these institutionalized spaces were built and thrive. This is in order to combat the unequal ratio of queer and femxle art and perspectives that are being showcased within the museum and art worlds via institutions.”

Video for “What We Wrote on the Water”

While we do encourage you to visit the installation in person, that obviously is not possible for everyone, so we are making the video available for separate viewing. Please enjoy Maternal Mitochondria’s experimental video “What We Wrote on the Water”!

The installation is available by appointment in Santa Fe, NM until February 8th 2021. E-mail msagan1035@aol.com or call 505-231-1922 to schedule a viewing.