Have you ever written an artist's statement?

As I mentioned on this blog, my VoodooGoblins are currently available in person at the Coq Rouge Art Gallery on Magazine Street in New Orleans.  When I brought the goblins in, the owner asked me to bring an artist's statement - a brief explanation of who I am as an artist and why I make the things I do.

I don't know if you've ever read one of these, or had to write one, but it is excruciating.  The unexamined life might not be worth living but self examination can be unpleasant.  

Who are you?   

What do you do?

Why are you doing it?

I googled artist's statement, hoping for a template that I could copy and fill in the blanks.  No luck.

I finally came up with - a reasonably accurate and brief description that I really hoped did sound not pretentious.

"I have been a working jewelry designer and artist in Southern Louisiana for the past 15 years.

From a young age, I was caught between the mystical world of my grandmother's Romani heritage and my scientist father's pragmatic world view. Unable to reconcile the two, I sought refuge in the dark twisting paths of fairy tale and fantasy.

With the Voodoo Goblins, I explore the spiritual place where the playful whimsy of a child's rag doll meets the dark mystery of voodoo magic."

Secretly, though, I think of myself as a dabbler who likes to play with fabric, but (most of all) likes to make things that look weird.

Have you ever written an artist bio?  Did you find it as difficult as I did?  

Of course, if writing one is just too hard, there are sites on the internet where it will spit out an artist statement for you.  

This one is the best!

This is what it produced for me - 

I sound completely amazing!

Lou Whoish

Lou Whoish (Florida, United States) is an artist who mainly works with mixed media. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language, Whoish wants to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation.

Her mixed media artworks are often classified as part of the new romantic movement because of the desire for the local in the unfolding globalized world. However, this reference is not intentional, as this kind of art is part of the collective memory. By emphasizing aesthetics, she creates work through labor-intensive processes which can be seen explicitly as a personal exorcism ritual. They are inspired by a nineteenth-century tradition of works, in which an ideal of ‘Fulfilled Absence’ was seen as the pinnacle.

Her works appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. By referencing romanticism, grand-guignolesque black humor and symbolism, she seduces the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life.

Her works sometimes radiate a cold and latent violence. At times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. Lou Whoish currently lives and works in Watson, LA."