Screenshot of Artist, Ariana Page Russell (Source: Artist web site)
I’m always intrigued by artists who find new and creative ways to use the body in art.
Ariana Page Russell has not only used her body in a unique way, she has taken her skin condition and incorporated it into her creative process. Reminiscent of some of my all time favorite female artists Ana Mendieta, Marina Abramovic, and Hannah Wilke (who suffered from Lymphoma, a type of cancer), Russell has taken her own body to create provocative work. She has reinvigorated the concept of body and how it serves as an active canvas.
I would LOVE to see a collaborative work or an exhibition with Ariana Page Russell and Laura Splan! Better yet, I would love to curate a show with them in it. Please click on the link above to view Russell’s site and learn more about her work.
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Dorothy R. Santos
Dorothy R. Santos (she/they) is a Filipino American writer, artist, and educator whose academic and research interests include feminist media histories, computational media, critical medical anthropology, technology, race, and ethics. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz as a Eugene V. Cota-Robles fellow. She received her Master’s degree in Visual and Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts and holds Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of San Francisco. Her work as been exhibited at Ars Electronica, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the GLBT Historical Society.
Her writing appears in art21, Art in America, Ars Technica, Hyperallergic, Rhizome, Vice Motherboard, and SF MOMA’s Open Space. Her essay “Materiality to Machines: Manufacturing the Organic and Hypotheses for Future Imaginings,” was published in The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture. She is a co-founder of REFRESH, a politically-engaged art and curatorial collective and serves as the Executive Director for the Processing Foundation. She is an advisor for Brooklyn-based arts and tech organization POWRPLNT and Bay Area-based arts organization slash arts.
4 responses to “A New Way to Use the Body”
Liz Mariani
At first glance, ripples of free association inspire an immediate linkage to Karen Finley http://karenfinley.com Ariana Page Russell handles a haunting glare in this screenshot. I have been ingesting this image for days. She certainly has “reinvigorated the concept of body and how it serves as an active canvas”. It feels as if her glare is working in tandem with a singular vignette detailed with red paint. I am inspired. Thank you for bringing this to my attention/intention.
You are certainly one to watch. Dorothy, I feel as if you are a scout working the same Earth, in a different direction, returning with ripened fruit, vivid…..languid asking us all, at each instance, to take a sip.
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