winsor gallery

EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY AWARD WINNERS

1988 - , Las Vegas, NV, Migraines (from the series: The Illuminated Body: An Atlas of Illness and Injury) Screen Print (detail and installation view) Incessant Notions of Data (detail) Are You Okay? #4 (Bath/Shower Drain) Everywhere I go, I'm a Tourist: Ronald McDonald A Tale of Two Seasons To Improve by Critical Editing Landscape Intervention Untitled (installation views) Wall Pieces 1, 2, and Finale (Quixotic 2)(installation view) Lava Here Nor There Ritual (installation views)

“The Illuminated Body grew out of my initial fascination with the way that scars and other imperfections on the skin act as souvenirs or portals to the past, imprinted on the body of the present. Exploring the intersection and interplay of touch and sight, The Illuminated Body is a series of embossed, monochromatic self-portraits that reveal both visible and invisible illnesses and injuries as seen on the skin, while focusing on the fragility and resilience of the human envelope.

The sence of touch is inseparable from the largest organ of the human body, our skin. The liminal quality of skin led me to investigate touch both literally and figuratively. Touch is fundamental to the process of perception for each of the senses, including mind. In Buddhist philosophy, mind is considered a sixth sense, the place where phenomena are pieced together, recorded and edited.

Touch is reciprocal. Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote about “flesh” as an animate sentience common to both human subjects and the surrounding environment, a presence both sensitive and sensible. I can't walk down the street or open my sock drawer without touching a world that is reciprocating that touch; I cannot feel the world without it too feeling me. Although my background in dance predisposes me to embodied perspecitve, I am learning to not only listen to my body, but also the outside world as it responds. This is a process of opening my awareness to the touch and feel of life itself, not simply in art. By honing sensitivity, listening intently to the messages of my injuries, and thinking with my whole body, I begin to see with the soles of my feet and feel with my eyes. Sight and touch are intertwined, and with awareness, attention and clarity of mind, the crucial role touch plays in acting as a base for the other senses becomes apparent. Through the wisdom of the body, acknowledging illness and injury becomes the first step in healing. The Illuminated Body is that acknowledgement and then a celebration of the fact that eyes can touch and skin can see.”

- Karen Garrett de Luna, Winner of Winsor Gallery Graduate Student Award

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