Inside the Dollhouse: A Tale of Whimsey and Feminine Myth
Aimee Hertog, Rita Bard, and Eden Stern
Flynndog Art Space, 208 Flynn Ave, Burlington, VT
July 2019
Opening Reception Thursday, July 11th, 5-8pm
With an emphasis on female identity, my work challenges the myth of domestic bliss. Embracing diverse media, my work includes sculpture, installation, collage and photography.
Found objects are integral to my work - discarded clothing, kitchenware, dead flowers, and broken glass. Some of these materials are transformed, others left in their raw state, forming grotesque female figures. Distended, entangled, sometimes literally left hanging, these pieces reflect the struggle women face in constructing and guarding their identities.
A rabid mix of colors and forms, all of my work evokes a gritty playfulness, while its energetic construction mirrors my interior chaos and the exterior turmoil of my life as a woman, a wife, a mother, and an artist.
In my work I use ambiguity as a way to reframe the relationship to what we see and what it means. Growing up in a German/American family, that was poor in resources but rich in exposure to art and culture, I developed an affinity for a wild mix of visual influences.
I soon learned that things are not always what they seem to be. Castles in Florida’s Disneyland were also like the “real” castles on the Rhine River. Delicate, individual hair were like sultry lines of graphite? Lines made of feathers and a background of colorful children’s cereal are as intriguing to me as images rendered in oils or acrylics.
To fully express my particular vision I combine traditional media and techniques with a plethora of lowbrow media and techniques, including readymade objects. My use of a large variety of visual and material sources is a language of discovery. Ideas are developed from memory and reality and are a way for me to frame our and ponder our particular time history.
