denise prince
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Denise Prince is an Austin-based, American artist concentrating in painting, photography and film. She is known for using the visual language of advertising to explore existence in relation to Desire. Influenced by critical theory at CalArts in Los Angeles, she has worked closely with clinical philosopher and Lacanian psychoanalyst Charles Merward since 2007.
Her work has been clarified, confronted, and interpreted by psychoanalyst members of the World Association of Psychoanalysis, is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has been exhibited internationally and has been featured on PBS Television and in Vogue Magazine. |
ARTIST STATEMENT
Prince carves a line from the imagination of what being an adult will be like to its limit, the memory of the missing thing. As youths we imagine what lies ahead in a way that is deeply imaginary but in the end it reflects the way we will also make sense of life as adults. Even as children we often sense the mismatch between what we are told and shown life is and our inner experience. The conflict is part of a re-cognition of desire (the memory of the missing thing.) As we mature and begin to read one another and present ourselves as objects, the performative elements along with imaginary hierarchies of value complicate our ability to differentiate between what is real and what isn’t. We grow increasingly self deceptive, imagining others take us for who we imagine ourselves to be (and also being painfully aware that we are not that thing). Papered over is the capability that comes with exorcising the signified within the story of ourselves. Prince makes these concerns explicit, demonstrating preferences for pretends, the effects of Desire. By tossing the defense against fundamental anxiety away, phantoms become figments. She tunes towards buoyancy and recasts lack as path for its unavoid/ability to create value.
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