Refresh, Refresh, Refresh

ROY presents: Christine Gaffney

Fri, Aug 14, 2020 - 6:00 PM
Sat, Sep 5, 2020 - 4:00 PM

Christine Gaffney is “An interdisciplinary performance artist focusing on body politics, identity, and gender. Until recently, Humor has been quietly present in my body of work. This is evident in my works like, “Lady Parts 1,” where I poke my finger through a hole in the wall, and in “Pony,” where I create an amalgamation of objects that result in me looking like a horse. I explore this further in my recent work where I employ cheating to obtain athletic dance positions I can’t otherwise achieve. Now the humor in my work is more pronounced as I explore breaking down videos from social media and recreating the ideas from these videos in a way that is almost absurd. As a performance artist who identifies as fat, I am interested in the way the female body has been depicted in the history of performance art as predominately straight-size. Even in a field that has been labeled as feminist, I argue there is still room for inclusion. For this reason, my work often suggests ideas about body image, beauty ideology, and feminism. I am influenced by contemporary performance artists and sculptors including Janine Antoni, Lauren Kalman, Shana Moulton, and Rebecca Horn. I discovered my current practice by way of sculpture training and for that reason, my performance work emphasizes sculptural objects. I interact with these objects in my videos or I display as ephemera of a performance. By utilizing techniques such as stillness, mimicry, and repetition, I become the object in my piece I am working on or performing by placing emphasis on the body.”

Artwork that is for sale is priced upon request. Artists receive 65% of sales and the 35% ROY retains is invested back into the gallery. 

You can experience more of Christine’s work here

Christine will take over ROY’S Instagram account August 25 &. 27

1. What is your name and pronouns?

Christine Gaffney and my pronouns are: she/hers/her

2. What medium(s) do you work with and why?

I primarily work in performance, but my work is often cross disciplinary as I utilize video, sculpture, and other forms in my work as well. As a young person I always wanted to be a dancer and I never quite fit that role because of my body type and size. I was in colorguard though which has influenced my work a lot. For these reasons, I have always wanted to use my body in my work. It feels natural to complete a form or compliment an object with my body to communicate and idea. 

3. How has art (whether it be your own or art in general) changed you? 

I definitely think my life has taken a different path since I embraced being an artist. I used to be a full-time Librarian but I missed making art and I thought about missing making every single day that I was working. Since I returned to school for art I've been much happier even if it means living simpler at times. I also try not to compare myself to others. It seems to me that people who have chosen more traditional routes in their lives or maybe more practical at least, often have a hard time understanding what I'm doing with my life being an artist. I just try to follow my passion and trust it will work out. 

4. How did you start your artistic practice?

I have always been creative. I used to paint and draw when I was young. I liked to dance. It was not until later in life that I started exploring sculpture and building forms. This combination of media resulted in me finding my individual voice within my work.

5. Your works deal specifically with intersectional topics such as the human body, identity, gender, and humor. How did you first come to discover that perfect "balance" between these topics, if you have?

I'm not sure I've found a perfect balance but the work continues to build as I make it. Each work is an exploration. If that exploration is fruitful, I am left curious and with so many ideas and places I want to go next with my work.

6. When a first-time viewer looks at your art, what is the first word that you hope they think when looking at it?

Maybe more of an expression like... Huh? I like when the viewer is a little puzzled and I keep things a bit absurd. I don't want my work to be easily digestible. At the same time I don't want it to be painful or stressful. I create a tension then I kind of use humor to massage that tension.

7. If you could meet any artist of your choosing (whether living or dead) and spend a day with them, who would it be?

I would like to meet Janine Antoni. Her work has been my favorite for a long time. Her work feels so accessible yet innovative at the same time. I think her mind is so curious. I'd love to have a conversation with her.

Leah Trznadel shares, “Image culture has saturated contemporary life. Society has been molded by image and perception. Photography and film are the universal language on which the world runs. Advertisement, promotion, public image, social media– a moment doesn’t exist unless there is photographic evidence of it. The search for the truest true dates back to art historic times and it was thought to be found in photography: a medium which captured life immediately and perfectly, but there is such mediation and subjection that happens in that translation from life to image. Understanding images and how they influence contemporary life is the exploration of my practice. The transfer of information from a three- dimensional world into a two-dimensional image and back again is where I find my inspiration. I seek to understand what exists within that transfer– the alteration of memory, the configuration of self. 

I use myself and my own experiences with photography and memory as a gateway into a deeper understanding. I perform for the sake of the camera, forge memories through images and present them as my own. I create something that exists in both the tangible world and the unseen digital space around it. My works present a digital replica of myself in a physical space which allows the mediation taking place for the camera to be magnified. These spaces create a sense of absurdity– a spectacle that draws the attention directly to the curation of the self which exists within them. 

I draw from performance and film histories to create familiar theatrics, then push them to the extreme. I speak on the dismantling of the division between public and private space, the sanctioned voyeurism that exists when advertising intimate moments to a world of wandering eyes. In this pool of intimacy, distance and personal broadcast, images and the lives they represent linger in the space between truth and fiction– maintaining aesthetic but forfeiting intention. My practice works to understand the grip that image has on contemporary life and explore how far it is willing to go.”

Experience more of Leah’s work here

Leah will take over ROY’S Instagram account August 18 & 20

What is your name and pronouns? 

Leah Trznadel, she/her/hers 

What medium(s) do you work with and why? 

I work in a few different mediums depending on what the work requires. When I’m dealing in perspectives of memory, impression and record, those ideas ask for a tangible medium so I often create handmade books or photographic prints. I’m also interested in this transfer of information that happens from experience to image specifically in relation to how we experience social media. These ideas lend themselves to more of a digital media and this is when I start to implement video and performance to create a persona that I present to my audience. 

How has art (whether it be your own or art in general) changed you? 

Art allows me to interpret the world more wholly. Art is very contemplative and is often more than it initially seems. I think viewing art has really been the part that has changed my life because it challenges me to be more meditative in my experiences and to seek a deeper understanding. 

How did you start your artistic practice? 

A few years ago, my mom found a scrapbook page of photographs I took with her camera as a kid. She spilled the secret to her scrapbook that I was getting a camera for Christmas that year. This seems like the true start of my artistic practice, although I think I had a second start in college. I went to school to pursue interior architecture but never ended up even applying for the major. I didn’t realize why I loved photography so much at the time (and to be honest I didn’t take that many pictures at the time and still don’t) but I took a chance and accepted photography as my degree program. 

Your works deal specifically with intersectional topics such as photography, identity, perspective, and memory. How did you first come to discover that perfect "balance" between these topics, if you have? 

I think they’re all so perfectly entwined in photography inherently that the balance already exists. I’d say the hard part is keeping that balance because I tend to overthink and not trust my instincts. Especially with the role that photography plays in contemporary society, it seems more difficult to find a separation in the medium and topics of identity, perspective, memory, than it is to find the connection. 

When a first-time viewer looks at your art, what is the first word that you hope they think when looking at it? 

“What,” “oh,” any sort of exclamatory word of misunderstanding. I sometimes don’t even get my work and I think that’s part of the point. How do we navigate understanding these personas we create that are supposed to represent ourselves but are so far removed from us? 

If you could meet any artist of your choosing (whether living or dead) and spend a day with them, who would it be? 

I would mash Augusta Wood, Emily Wardill, Janine Antoni and Esther Teichmann into one person so I could hang out with them all.