American Culture & Conversations
My work explores characteristics of a contemporary American culture at its worst, best and average. The projects come from research, media, podcasts and conversations about the American experience. Each is developed into a visual articulations of the frivolity, richness and commonalities of modern life. I mine an array of topics around our cultural enigmas, myths, contradictions, and obsessions into multiple bodies of work into paintings, installations, or sculptures. I find refuge in rejecting traditional norms and methods by exploring new materials. The seeds of exploration, innovation, and wonder dictate the final form or materials. The studio has become a laboratory and a performance of the questions I am asking and the answers I seek to resolve.
My current work focuses on our fixation with objects (possessions) and the spaces in which they/we inhabit. The American consumer is an obsessive collector, a hoarder of objects: consumable, durable and mundane. The frivolity and sheer volume of acquiring, fueled by social media, advertising and corporations has developed an cultural spirit where objects and spaces become symbols of status, history and self which are not rational. The body of work began when my brother’s village burned to the ground and a need to understand his loss. All those lost objects and spaces were imbued with meaning and history. Both the room and the objects participate in a struggle with the body and inner self by forming layers of histories, memories, and relationships. We ourselves are objects within the space we reside in or pass through. Architectural features like corridors, doors and windows offer an opportunity to contemplate.
The projects examine the rooms I am working in, passing through, remembering, or am experiencing virtually. Each work reflects an interaction with all the STUFF and the room which has defined my past, present and existence. Every return to the studio creates another layer of interaction and time and simultaneously attempts to resolve the psychological and the emotional hold on me and a rejection of the kinship I possess with any object. The threads of thought document and unravel the relationships by abstracting and recontextualizing the complex dialogs with the stuff of life. But I am left with more questions to explore: What remains? What is gone? What has changed or been transported? What is memory? What has been discovered? What is visible or unseen?
I am curious of the riddle of these curated spaces and the objects within them in which we dwell. By expressing the tension between the room (diagram), the object (abstraction) and self (autobiography) I am discovering the identity, history and memories which reside in a realm beyond words. The spaces and the objects are always whispering and I am listening.
Renee Noelle Cheesman 7 18 2024
Renee (Noelle) Cheesman, Updated 8/15/2024