Memento Mori Mutely Murmur…
Artist’s Statement:
Illuminating the obscurity of sex and death has been the guiding principle in this photographic installation of corpselike dolls suspended in neighborhood kiddy pool debris. Flotsam and jetsam buoy the plastic cadavers, memento mori mutely murmuring: remember you, too, will die.
Woven into the questions of mortality float threads of Botticelli, Frida Kahlo and Michelangelo, as well as the American love affair with surface and spectacle. Feminist struggle is mirrored in this imagery, symbolizing the conflict between desire and prohibition, motherhood and career.
This piece was created in collaboration with artist Tom Oberg, the founder of Rural Research Laboratories, Sayre, PA. As waves of clarity and shadow reveal and conceal, our dialogue continues.
Jan Kather
October 1, 2005 (Installation at SUNY Brockport’s Tower Art Gallery)
©Jan Kather 2005