ART Habens Lisa Birke
as truth— especially when a certain image or narrative is repeated over and over again without questioning. The church understood the power of the image in the middle ages, yet we often don’ t challenge tropes or mythologized representation in contemporary society. I should add that if there is further interest in some of the background information on the source paintings and the mythologies explored in Pictures my MFA thesis on this body of work can be found here: http:// www. lisabirke. com / writings / pdfs / lisabirk e _ thesissupportdocument _ 2013. pdf.
That is a great question. No, I feel that sometimes we artists like to feel that we can separate ourselves and / or our personal lives from the‘ greater concept’ we are working towards, but I feel that this is an impossibility. Of course, all our direct experiences cannot but wholly influence what we produce. Even when suppressed, the everyday, the mundane, our individual fears, joys, insanities and all of our processed experiences will filter out into the work in some way, if not directly than indirectly.
In my own work, I have really had to contend with the fact that I am physically present in the work— even if only as a physical stand-in for an architype, or as an abstracted concept. Initially I used my own body because it was
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