Jennifer Mehigan
Jennifer Mehigan, artiste d'origine irlandaise ; diplômée en design graphique à Sydney, Australie ; vit aujourd'hui sur Singapour. Cette artiste digitale, aux multiples facettes, refuse les étiquettes, notamment dans l'art, où les enjeux restent encore trop centrés en Europe et aux Etats-Unis, se définissant elle-même de : "surgically-altered / intersex / queer / fat / whatever"... et notamment à travers son travail, qu'elle qualifie de peinture, même si celles-ci ont été réalisées via son ordinateur. Pour elle il n'y a pas de fausses peintures : "My paintings are all paintings, whether I do it on a computer or not".
Jennifer Mehigan, she's an Irish artist; graduated in graphic design in Sydney, Australia; now lives on Singapore. This digital artist, have got multiple sides and she refuse to be define by words, especially in art, where the stakes are still too focused on Europe and the United States, sometimes she defined herself like : "Surgically-altered / intersex / queer / fat / whatever "... but particularly through her work, that she calls paint, even if it was done via computer. For her there is no false paintings: "My paintings are all paintings, whether I do it on a computer or not".
(Source)
A travers ses toiles, installations ou vidéos, il y a une certaine recherche esthétique, un peu abstraite ; comme si la peinture devenait une pallette graphique photoshopée, aux multiples effets de couleurs et de reliefs. Les couleurs pastels, et les néons roses nous renvoient à des influences kitch, girly et 90's. Mêlant gifs kawaï, fonds d'écran tumblr ou pastels, parfois grillagés, tout en imaginant écouter "Baby one more time" de Britney Spears.
Through his paintings, installations and videos, there is some aesthetic research, somewhat abstract; as if painting became a graphic pallette photoshoped, with multiple colors and effects ; while she used pastel colors and pink neon lights, remind us influences like kitsch, girly things and 90's. Combining kawaii gifs, tumblr's pictures or pastels color, sometimes with a grid, while imagining listen "Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears.
"I think that was probably the closest I came to figuring out what my aesthetic was in a non-committal way. I needed a word that talked about desire and the computer and maybe "cyber" is a little dated but soft ghetto and grunge made '90s cyber stuff cute again so whatever. I feel like it's a word that works for a lot of images people are making and sharing online, like they're wet and glossy and sexy and repetitive and your body reacts to them but it's like—they are just pixels and it's all an illusion and the person who made them isn't really part of your experience but you need them for that image to exist. Like cybersex but visual or something.
Yeah, I mean the word artist scares me more as an identifier than queer, ha. Queer visibility is definitely part of whatever I'm making right now and I don't want to avoid talking about it ever. But it's weird that you mention that grouping—since it's "become known," I guess, I've seen people on Twitter talking about me like, "Maybe someone to consider for a queer show in the future" and that makes me feel weird. But it depends entirely on who is doing the grouping. Sometimes it's cool for it to be recognized and sometimes it's like, "Nah not by you though."
"I'm still developing work around cybersensuality, but with more of a focus on machines and touching on this kind of old idea of synthanatos that Nick Land spoke about in the '90s—but from a soft body dynamics point of view. I'm terrible at explaining things, but it's like an expansion on the death drive; this theory that we experience an artificial death that's induced every time we interact with a screen or a digital space and then I'm comparing that in a roundabout way to desire, orgasms (aka "la petite mort") and visualizing sex with the internet, dying on the internet, what the body/bodies would look like or feel like and stuff like that." (Source)
Dans une société, centrée sur l'image de soi, l'art n'a jamais été aussi vivant visuellement et interactivement... chaque image est partagée, reproduite et "likée". Jennifer Mehigan est consciente de faire partie de ce système, et elle en joue.
"Singapore's aesthetic is very… ridiculous. Maybe that's how it's influenced me. They're like, 'You know what, we're just going to steal a part of everything else and make a crazy hybrid'. And I'm like, ''Same'."
In a society, where everyone are centered on self-image, art has never been so open visually and interactively with all the world... each image is shared, reproduced and "liked". Jennifer Mehigan, she's totally awake with that, and she know she's being part of this system, that's her game.
"Singapore's aesthetic is very ... ridiculous. Maybe that's how it's Influenced me. They're like, 'You know what, we're just going to steal a share of everything else and make a crazy hybrid'. And I'm like, '' Same '. "
More informations :
https://vimeo.com/jennifermehigan
Written by Lonely † Boy
