The Artistic Aesthetics of a Gender Biased Medical Debacle
The Artistic Aesthetics of a Gender Biased Medical Debacle
"Bodies and Babies"
-Motherhood, infertility, the body and children
KARI ROBERTS-SACKMANN
by Gabriel Diego Delgado
**(As seen in Nov. 2011 NSIDE MD Magazine)
Courtesy of the Artist
Courtesy of the Artist
The Artistic Aesthetics of a Gender Biased Medical Debacle
-By Gabriel Diego Delgado
A medical, as well as ideological, debate continues to be kept at the forefront of our collective consciousness as society continues to cultivate a cultural and artistic action/reaction to the world around. This convoluted sociable thread has been woven through the international art world for a long time- surfacing around a pre feminism era; maintaining a presence through the 1920’s – 1960’s as well into the 1980’s and 1990’s. Here in 2012, there are still relevant and pressing issues; with technology, government, and individual concessions all playing a role in the constitutional amendments and current federal and state laws regarding woman’s rights and more importantly- woman’s reproductive and healthcare rights.
Artist Kari Roberts-Sackmann is a San Antonio based artist whose exhibition at Bihl Haus Arts titled Bodies and Babies
- "Motherhood, infertility, and the body and children", presents the audience with a personal story of motherly tragedy, one wife’s hopes and dreams, and a woman’s personal heart aches as well as triumphs. An exhibition that overtly and subliminally addresses the Obama-care vs. Romney-care debate as well as everything in-between. Kari is an artist, wife, mother, and a Registered Nurse in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Her expert opinions, professional career experience, as well as personal knowledge all coalesce to formulate a unique artistic endeavor- focused at an underlying political concession aimed at creating an intimate educational and artistic experience for the viewer.
"Bodies and Babies represents over four years of work in which I was either trying to get pregnant, was pregnant or was breastfeeding…it represents the sacrifice and desire for children and the tenacity it takes to continue to be able to express yourself artistically", says Kari while introducing the artistic but personal summary of her new body of artwork.
Mrs. Kellen Kee McIntyre, PhD, Executive Director of Bihl Haus Arts and curator of the exhibition explains, "The exhibition consists of four groups of interrelated works… monumental…celebrations of maternity." Confined to the seemingly constrained walls of Bil Haus Arts, Bodies and Babies wraps the gallery like an epic child bearing saga; complete with audio visual accentuates.
Pictorial manifestations of pregnant bodies in the nude, up-close child portraits, conceptual minimalist afflictions and post surgical painterly attributes reinforce Kari’s artistic cognizance- "
Life is like birth… it’s sticky and smelly and bloody and filled with joy and pain. It doesn’t roll out like a beautiful documentary but is committed to our memory as a slide show of our most earnest moments." Expressing, "I make my art in order to capture these moments."
The gestalt of Kari’s work is found in her keen understanding of her own life. "The creation of life and art are hopelessly conjoined and the influences they have on each other are undeniable." Referencing her own children, unbridled time constraints, and day to day routines, Kari admits to the faults, guilt and challenges of being an artist, mother, professional, and wife.
Kari opens up her personal world to her audience with intimate nude, self-portraits that illuminate a radiant glow of motherhood; veiled in a mastered chiaroscuro effect. The body’s contoured fleshes accentuate the sexual explicitnesses of the pregnant woman. Never about the individual identity; the artwork always ratifies the personal responsibilities for one’s own bodies; abrogating and dispelling the contrived legislative and the political myths on woman’s medical needs and wants.
Conceptual in thought and intrigue for her own aesthetic and artistic reverence, Kari self-reflections on her art as life is summarized in her mystical personifications- "There is a connection between my nursing and my art."
The heart of Kari’s exhibition lies in her day to day routines in the NICU. "Being a NICU nurse makes me grateful every day. One of the hardest things I did was working as a pregnant woman in the NICU. In thirteen years of nursing, I have seen a lot. The first baby I ever took care of as a nurse had no legs. How do you diaper a baby with no legs? You learn."
"I think there is a certain reverence in these particular paintings. I do not take for granted the normal development of a child. Anything can go wrong. I have seen it. So I find particular joy in the laughter of my children. I find joy in their tantrums. I am happy (most of the time) that they can be defiant and question and be precocious because I take care of so many infants who never will be. I have rocked and sang to infants who I knew would not live to be a year old or a month old. So pregnancy and childbirth was, at once, frightening and inspiring"
Within the exhibition is a painting titled, Intervention- one of the more overtly medical artworks. A close-up of the female torso- the sutures, the bandages, the medical tape and post surgical aesthetic anchors the viewer in a heinous healthcare hangover. Life giving is seen as heroic, as celebratory, but in Intervention it is the opposite- a medical nightmare- devilishly deceitful in vile bodily pain. Kellen’s curatorial statement summaries the piece quiet well- "Intervention captures the physical pain of amniocentesis and other invasive procedures, and the psychological and emotional tolls they take." Veiled in a chiaroscuro effect, highlighting only the right side of the belly and navel, this artwork is complete with small squares of textured material- mimicking membranes that create a skin like under-support of which to paint on.
More conceptual than visual, the one body of work that is not pictorial in this exhibition is made up of 20 small rectangular canvases hung in a grid arrangement. They lay bare the red bar strips of positive or negative affirmations of the home pregnancy test. These small paintings ring out the true daily frustration to those seeking to get pregnant. Effectively curated in the exhibition, Kellen sees these small works as "The waiting, hoping, false readings, and months, sometimes years of infertility punctuated by grueling fertility treatments".
As an artist and NICU nurse Kari struggles with the medical debate; echoing the national murmur. "What many people don’t seem to understand is that the taxpayer pays for the healthcare of the uninsured anyway… in the most inefficient and expensive way possible… through the emergency room. It’s the most expensive and in terms of health care, in general, the most inefficient because by the time a person presents to the emergency room, the care that ensues is usually very involved. It’s clear to me that we have to put the bulk of our resources into preventative medicine and I think that is what Obama-care is trying to do." She goes on to say, "However, I also tend to side with the right in that anytime you let the government regulate something as huge as health care it will have dire consequences…Can we find some common ground between the greed of the current system and the albatross that Obama-care is going to be to our children and their children?"
Although several more pregnancy and family related paintings fill the gallery, the pleasantly surprising amendments to the exhibition can be found in the auditory recordings of Kari’s personal family experiences. Set onto a CD and played through a series of small portable CD players with headphones at simple black pedestal listening stations, these auricular segments give us an intimate glimpse into precious family time. Highlighting temper tantrums, intimate lullabies, and chipper children’s choruses, the viewer is provided with a sensorial overload of emotional disparage, fulfillment and intimacy.
Overall, Kari Roberts-Sackmann bares witness to the ever-changing landscape of political healthcare homogeneity in her exhibition Bodies and Babies.
© Gabriel Diego Delgado
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