the inside is darker from the inside
The Inside is Darker from The Inside is a video installation that delves into the mental and physical state of my maternal grandmother, Venita Patchin. Venita is a hoarder by all textbook definitions, and throughout her life has suffered from forms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and/or bi-polar disorder. Through various media including sculpture and video I have created a physical, spatial, photographic and time-based portrait of her. The portrait is a document of a specific moment in her life when she was removed from her home and her future was uncertain. This portrait denies the viewer the distance from the subject that a video or photograph alone would allow. It is an immersive environment that absorbs the viewer into the condition of both ruin and accumulation that fills its walls. The chaotic arrangement of objects, mostly domestic items of a feminine variety and materials found in the trash, describe both the actual material reality of her house as well as the immaterial reality of her phychosis. The outside walls, maintain a barrier or skin, serving as both architectural structure and metaphor for her body. The internal space contained by the structure is approximately 100 sq ft. and is paradoxically claustrophobic while giving the illusion of an expansiveness that continues indefinitely in an intangible way.
It is a portrait of a woman. It is a portrait of a generation. It is a portrait of family. It is a portrait of Middle America.
The Inside is Darker from The Inside was my 2011 M.F.A Thesis project at The School of Visual Arts.