JANICE DeLOOF
STATEMENT
Recurring images of furniture and various utilitarian objects are symbols and signs from my own personal vocabulary of memories used to create visual narratives on wood, canvas, or embossed paper. Small mise en scènes portrayed by miniature tables and chairs depict the tension and drama that lies underneath family life. These works are storyboard like scenes of family stories told with furniture in different modes.
Some of the assembled installations like Family Secrets and Conversations with the Painted Chairs are constructs – part theater, part game board - that play with notions of self-identification and dialogue, using art as a framing device. Participants seated in a circle in Conversations with the Rose Petal Rug (an interactive art piece) are invited to talk with each other about family memories. Fragments of photos of family members are "woven" with rose petals in the Rose Petal Rug in the center of the circle of painted chairs. Some of the chairs have word labels such as the words “guilty”, “why” and “just because.”
The art begins the conversation about feelings and relationships; the mind of the viewer completes it. Conversation both private and public is an exchange - an attempt by the individual to integrate or reconcile with others in the community. To converse is to identify one’s self in relation to another person or idea. Art becomes a tool for investigating the structures of social interaction.
© Janice DeLoof
