Jason Driskill

Yesterday I had another critique in my Critique Seminar class with Pegan Brooke.  Every two weeks we have to submit work for the group (twelve of us) to discuss critically.  It’s structured with such tight deadlines to help the first-year students maintain a high-production art practice, and to introduce them to critical discussion about their work and processes.  Right, I’m not new to that kind of discussion and sometimes the class feels a little rudimentary.  The pace at which we’re expected to work is invigorating, and that is why I signed up for this course this summer.  I love the two-week deadlines, as it sucks away any tendency I have to put off making work.  And honestly, rudimentary can’t hurt.  I feel like my rusty wheels need to be soaked in oil for awhile.

In addition to the artwork that we had to present yesterday (I submitted for discussion my glittery “It’s Inside You” painting from the Rituals Show) we also had to supply everyone with an updated artist statement to reflect the work we’ve been doing for the past six weeks.  I was freaking out about this late Friday night, as I had no clue what to write.  I’ve never met an artist who didn’t experience some sense of panic when it came time to write an artist statement.  It’s torturous.  I realized that my recent musings in my recent blog entry “Trajectory” were actually talking about the issues that I wanted my new artist statement to refer to.  So I lifted several sentences and phrases and constructed the following statement.  Since I have to turn this statement in to a review panel in two weeks, this is still only a draft.  I am open to suggestions or edits (please!).  If anyone has any revisions, please post them as comments and I’ll take them into consideration before I submit my work to the end-of-summer review.

Self-reflection is the driving force of my work.  I am constructing images using symbols from experiences that are in one way or another associated with the awakening of my sexual awareness, or rather the dissolution of my sexual denial.  That particular time demands exploration - not because of my interest in sexual identity or fascination with gender - but because of the tender, painful and dichotomous transformation that I undertook when I replaced my religious naiveté with a devastating acknowledgement of my unwelcome and shameful sexual orientation.  I strive to make sense of the shift that took place in my self-perception, and the religious and sexual worlds between which I am continually trapped.

This is the investigation into my past, an examination of the division that took place when I was nineteen between thee me I wanted to be and the me that I couldn’t deny.

The advice from the group was to provide some general descriptions or visual references that will anchor the statement to my work.  And also include one or two sentences that open the statement up from being solely personal to include a more general audience.  Lastly a couple people were concerned with my ambiguous use of the phrase “unwelcome and shameful sexual orientation.” It seems unclear whether I’m referring to my current opinions or my past-perspective opinion, or the opinions of the religious context from which I was emerging.  Honestly feel that it is all three of those.  Despite how much I’ve come to terms with sexuality, I will always harbor a resentment toward it as the force which cleaved me out of the insentient bliss of my myopic faith.