Carolyn Chema
Artist Statement
My work focuses on the role of the individual with regard to the environment, climate, and community. Through the process of observing small moments and individual beings in nature, I am interested in the way patterns emerge from the tiny actions of single bodies. How do minuscule moments create global patterns? Can a small gesture towards environmental reverence here cause a shift in awareness all the way over there? Nearing the edge of a high, rapidly approaching precipice, I look for threads, branches, neural pathways that can bring into view alternative routes back to balance in nature. I imagine worlds where this could exist and I imagine worlds where this could not. Though working in a variety of mediums and styles, all of the work grapples with ideas of micro and macro. Something up very close can be confused with something at a great distance. This tension is present in the labor of the work which is often performative. All the pieces require a great deal of repetitive action that amasses to produce a complex outcome. rn Elements of collage and craft are also universally present in the work. This is rooted in an interest in methods historically dismissed in their classification as “women’s work.” Weaving, embroidery, shadowboxing, collaging, and scrapbooking are all called upon to situate these activities within conceptual investigations into environmental stewardship, reaffirming the historical role of women as guardians of and communicators with nature.
Carolyn Chema | Olympia, WA