STATEMENTS / BIO

Artist Bio

“Through the use of appropriation, video, digital manipulation, and athletic performance, my work deals with the multiple delusions of global consumer society, from the faith that we can continue to fuel our car culture with french-fry oil and Priuses, to the escapism of fantasty cruise ship vacations.  With a Bachelor of Science in Geography, my interests have revolved around the concepts of economic and social geography, particularly in the transportation of goods as well as the transport of humans.” 

Sierra Brown lives in San Pedro and will receive her MFA from California State University at Long Beach in May 2008.

Import

Saphire Princess is part of an ongoing project called Import in which the relationship between the current global economy and the postcolonial legacy of international trade is explored.  Import includes both a series of videos of container ships, oil tankers, and extravagant cruise ships from the ports of Los Angeles and Tokyo as well as a series of ‘made in china’ sound lightboxes depicting still lives of imported tropical fruit.  

Domestic Heat

Confidence is one of five digital images in the motivational phrase series, Domestic Heat, in which a white female is portrayed in various settings of a contemporary Southern California suburban home.  My work as a wildland firefighter on the El Cariso hotshots and on sportfishing boats, and my lifestyle as a surfer, inspired me to explore the associations between women and firearms in relation to self-image and social issues. 

The gun is significant because it symbolizes violence, and in Confidence, specifically domestic violence.  Guns also represent power, which is typically correlated with patriarchy.  The phallic connotation of the gun in Confidence is “male” both sexually and socially.  Patriarchal social convention suggests that women generate social power due to their sexuality and male sexual desire.  The gun provokes thought about different types of power and their associated identities or sub-cultures. 

Motivational phrases give direction to us on how to succeed, what in life is important, and provide a lens through which we imagine ourselves.  Most phrases promote awareness of self-worth and image; in turn we become aware of all that we are not.  Southern California is the archetype for an image driven and productivist world.  In Confidence,routine words such as obstacle and glory are reinterpreted amongst a barrage of domestic, sexual and violent connotation.