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"Desire is a
positive life force, like grass growing in the
cracks of the sidewalk." — Jean Baudrillard
The Forces That Make Us Live or Die
My main intention with The Forces That Make Us Live or Die is to push
myself into a resistant oblivion. For the installation, I created images of my
body by pressing myself against a flatbed scanner. I manipulated the images digitally:
repeated them, and reconfigured them to make a continuous wallpaper pattern.
Through this process I was able to dream of my body as a new unrecognizable form.
By applying the wallpaper to the space, my body image effectively encompasses
the gallery. A repeated image of my tattoo is even visible on the wall imagery.
By working with the new imagery of myself I was able to imagine myself as a simple,
continuous, undulating plane - expanding into space. This lack of specificity
opens up possibilities for viewers to experience the wallpaper in diverse and
conflicting ways. The imagery references a body, an orifice, an architectural
space, a landscape, and becomes referential to both an internal and external
space. The space created by the wallpaper appears to be at once nurturing and
dangerous. This explosion of possibilities is an attempt to push toward and suggest
the limitless expansiveness of the unknown.
Beneath the wallpaper rests decaying bags of soil, dirt from a graveyard, and
manure. The hand-sewn bags act as a grounding mechanism for the installation.
The bags are assembled in a giant mound and reference transplanting bags, intestines,
and ancient burial mounds. There are plants growing from this waste and this
decay (some are even edible). The installation references a continuous cycle
of eating, digesting, shitting, giving life and taking life. The plants are intended
as a metaphor for life continually winning and persevering.
— Mandy Sheedy
Mandy Sheedy, is an artist based in Portland, Oregon. She works with sculpture,
textiles, ceramics and site-specific work.
> View
Exhibit and Opening Images
> Read About Sheedy's Opening
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