Amber Sena

Statement

Within the privacy of one’s soul reside the raw elements. They are compressed to subdue the actuality of one’s “animal”. The average civilian finds need to substitute for it by maintaining a wearable appearance. It should be understood that reasons behind our emotional reactions derive from complex webs woven over time; from experience and genetic construct producing combinations too fragmented for words - too dense to compress.

I often produce images revealing multiples of a single subject. The multiples are suggestive of layers reflecting of such combinations within one’s schema. Through repetition, a viewer is invited to examine the communication between the self and its counterpart(s) by metaphors of the conscience. The metaphors I’ve used have been formerly read as depictions of pre-conjured rebellion, battling with conscience, schizophrenic self-reasoning, regret, etc.

Insidious works showcasing unshielded emotion continue to emerge in my studio. In executing the images, larger than life heads and figures are mapped out. The blatancy of expression is inflicting at this scale, enveloping the viewer within the idea of emotional supremacy. As the figures develop, they become more and more over-described until they are pushed over the edge of realism and into the realm of the uncanny. What settles the imagination it seems is familiarity. Thus, I allow the negative space to remain bleak. An existing space will tend to own the figure. A starker one reverses full allegiance.

Being a female artist having undergone particular life stages, my work manages to gear itself more toward female examination. I’ve allowed my work to reflect the natural tendency of a woman’s reasoning with her past and present, by considering my own. Whether subtle or direct, most of my work can be determined as pictorial translations of inner struggle, expressions revealing the volcanic pressures of intolerance emerging just below the surface, others dank with the heaviness of time and tolerance itself. “The Color of Memory” evokes stagnant recollections of childhood. Withered hands shelter a history of something hidden, or a treasure on the verge of being revealed. It is common for a child to withhold a secret discovery, like it is for a woman cradle her memories, or conceal the shame of even her earliest desires.

I’ve also included in my studio work a symbolic element for stimulating all subjects, both in the work itself and the viewer of the work. With insects we are reminded that they carry character qualities of their own as vast breeds of species and a history of religious, supernatural, biological, nutritional, and metamorphic
notability. For the artwork with human subjects, the insects are rendered as they would appear in real life, only in unusual and somewhat unsettling proximity to the subjects. I also use insects (in particular, beetles) as suspended objects in dark atmospheres that seem to silently generate power. I would hope that the beetles I describe here serve as imposed elements of tangibility and of mystery all at once. Their armor-like casings remind us of something alien and unpredictable- perhaps something all knowing and manipulatively engaged. There is a disturbing presence underneath the beauty of their shell, something refusing to nurture and lacking vulnerability... something so hiddenly aware. I have chosen to increase the scale of the creatures so the viewer is made aware of their frightening emblematic presence.

Insects are many times displayed as objects of study. This allows the viewer to consider them as restrained, only to be reminded of their unpredictability, at safe distance. I’ve discovered the insect component by far a symbol of vast possibility, suggesting both despise and desire. They are often overlooked, and at times feared in the world of actuality; here they are brought to admirable sophistication in dominant positions of meditators, reminders, messengers, instigators, tempters, etc. They are probes. That is, stimulants that effect a subject by producing a reaction – an emotion. These insects are to be accepted as what I refer to them being – static triggers.

As all aspects of my art will progress, I’d like to maintain a body of work within this framework and perhaps both increase and decrease the scale of my subjects. I am uncertain of how long I will continue to dabble in the visual interpretations of emotion, but through their execution, I find I can produce the most accurate depictions essential in dealing with my own.

Bibliography