Statement

Nu Brutalism

My work explores my search for spirituality in a secular world, with a recent focus on the relationship between violence and ancient religion. I am inspired by Medieval and Baroque Catholic artwork and the way in which it illustrates a world that is both grotesque yet inexhaustibly beautiful, allowing for both of these qualities to exist simultaneously without being in conflict with one another. Somewhere between these seemingly opposite things - dark and light, brutality and sweetness, freedom and fear - reality lies.

Although not raised in a religious tradition, I always felt I had certain spiritual needs which I seeked to fulfill. I spent a year in college studying Anthropology with a focus on religion and witchcraft, because I was searching for the first religion or the origins of God. What I found was more complicated than that. But today I am interested in the ways our spiritual needs manifest themselves in other aspects of modern life. For instance, I used to be heavily involved in music subcultures. Or have friends who practice BDSM or neo paganism. I think these are all ways in which we grope towards God.

I am trying to create work that distills ancient religion down to its base elements: blood and bone, wood and stone, metal, sand and dirt. Borrowing from the aesthetic of the Old Testament, these symbols help me tap into primal feelings of spirituality.

I see my recent works as a reflection of the moral ambiguity of the time and space we are living and operating in. For instance, The US has many unsavory practices. As citizens and taxpayers we are in a way complicit, we enjoy the comforts and benefits of these practices. I do not know if this makes us good or bad people. But I am beginning to think there is no such thing. Life is more complex than that. We try to fit everything into a dualistic framework so we can make sense of the world around us. But reality is not dualistic. The only thing that really separates good from evil, up from down, inside from outside, or you from I - is our language. These are figures of speech and cultural constructs. Without this framework we become a part of a shared oceanic existence. In the bible God created man as separate from nature. But maybe everything - man, nature, and the act of creation itself - is God. Perhaps this is what was meant by the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil: We can live in paradise, until we adopt this worldview which divides us. 

It’s not my intention to convey these ideas through my work, and I certainly am not accomplishing this. But I want to make work which leaves my viewer with more questions than answers, encouraging them to inhabit this in-between space I’m describing and perhaps in that process become more familiar with facing contradiction, while also finding beauty. How are they supposed to feel about these images? Who in the images are they meant to identify with? What is the artist’s intention for making them? There are no answers to these questions, and in this way they are like real life.

Calla Donofrio 2024