VANESSA ROMO 

STATEMENT

 

Transfixed by complexity, I am drawn to contradiction. My research centers on the links between subjective memory and fact, apathy and empathy, femininity and masculinity, fragility and strength, and the persistent presence of beauty within the grotesque, as they surface through processes of fragmentation, repair, and material tension. Rather than accepting the polarity of these pairings, I seek the relationships inside them. I experiment with what emerges when perceived boundaries blur—when oppositions are forced into coexistence.

 

I often feel at a loss for words, and the material exploration becomes the vehicle through which I find them. Our perceptions are warped and fragmented, shaped by internal and external forces. We literally see ourselves in pieces: an arm here, a leg there. This fracturing and subsequent repair of self, body, and world is a persistent thread in my work; mending. My objects manifest and respond to my conditioned ideas of the “female ideal,” serving as commentary on the erosion of bodily autonomy and the politics of the body.

 

Clay is used as a foundation and becomes the surface onto which I layer industrial and domestic materials—insulation foam, textiles, steel, and more; a constant collaboration, call and response. These opposing materials extend my examination of contradiction within the feminine and push back against prescribed gender roles/binaries. Through this process of self-examination, I have restructured my understanding. The curiosities that emerge—fragmented, oddly mended, and strange—have become whole through sustained mending.