Carla Gannis. A Subject Self-Defined

About

‘A Subject Self-Defined’ is a new body of work from Carla Gannis that addresses issues of branded identity; age and body estimation; catastrophe culture; and online agency via static, dynamic and interactive “selfie” imagery.

The woman’s face has served as the muse of the male gaze throughout art history. Artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo, and Cindy Sherman have subverted this idea of woman as figure, as a mere face, and as muse through self-portraiture. They called into question what happens when a woman turns the paintbrush and, in our contemporary times, the camera, to her own face.

In ‘A Subject Self-Defined’, Carla Gannis provides the viewer with multiple vantage points that traverses various forms of self-portraiture and mixed-media methodologies. Her series converges a wide array of technologies – drawing, painting, animation, social media, and augmented reality – together to serve as the artist herself re-represents herself.

Statement from the Artist:
“My selfie drawing series began one year ago as a search, turning my gaze upon myself (and my electronic devices) to see what I might find there. I felt vulnerable at first, speaking more directly through my own voice, and using myself as a character in the digital narratives that seem to be my most natural form of expression.

The culmination of this body of work as a solo exhibition of large-format looped moving images takes its title from Joseph Kosuth’s 1966 neon sculpture that spells out and is eponymously titled ‘A Subject Self-Defined.’ He belonged to a group of artists involved in stripping down the art object, reducing it to ideas and information that were detached from personal meaning. Forty-nine years later, when we find art in the age of networked identity and digital dematerialization, I am perplexed by subjecthood and self-definition in relationship to the “personal” when performed publicly.”

A full inventory of work from ‘A Subject Self-Defined’ is available from the gallery. Please inquire with the director@transfergallery.com to request information.