If I had to say, I think it begins sometime last September, when art became something I had to theorize and conceptualize and it wasn't just about doing something I liked. I'm not sure what would have happened if I had said, well here's some stuff that I made because I think it looks nice, or because I had fun making it, and no it doesn't have any deeper meaning than that (although I guess if I think about anything long enough I could bullshit some meaning into it). But I didn't do that. I tried to come up with something bigger than me, with ideas about existence and life and all that crap that frankly I feel unqualified to philosophize on, whether it be in a visual form or not.
And I felt, and still feel, kind of suffocated by these concepts and demands that I feel being placed upon me. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make because I'm pretty sure it has all been made before. I'm getting to a dangerous point where I really think anything can be art, but I'm not sure if that is right. And I'm sort of sick of feeling like I'm totally inadequate, that what I think and feel and make and do just isn't good enough. I feel a little bit trapped, like I'm trying to make myself into someone and something that I'm really not - an Artist.
So with all of those terrible angsty emotions floating around all the time, seeing Kate Gilmore's art, I really appreciated what she was making and doing because it felt really natural. She is not trying to be someone she isn't, or make something she doesn't want to. Watching her videos also might be a cathartic experience for me. Because she gets to smash stuff, obviously. I've never been one to lash out on things around me, but I hear that it feels pretty good. So some of her videos make me imagine feeling really good, and then other ones make me imagine feeling terrible, like being stuck in a too-tight-space, which is something I feel often, but metaphorically! not actually, like in "Main Squeeze."
S0... there's all that. Then I definitely think that her work speaks to the "femininity" question in general. She is the woman in all her videos, but the work isn't about her, she says (and I agree, you can feel that there's something bigger going on), so much that what she wants to do is easier for her to do herself because of the physicality involved. She uses her body as a tool, and she needs and wants it to be a strong (literally), curvy, womanly body. She wears heels and dresses, further emphasizing that femininity, and many of her titles and themes evoke issues of the traditional role and place of women in society. This last bit may be reading too much into it, and not what she intends in the art, but I definitely felt it was there.
Anyway - enough talking. I think her stuff is really, really amazing. Please check out her website if you want to see more, and let me know what you think!
