Alesha Fiandaca: Sexbombs
Exhibiting at Scope Miami, December 5 - 8, 2002, at the Town House Hotel, Miami
This body of work has evolved from my decision to create intentionally beautiful objects. Eager to work outside the ceramic idiom, I began to choose materials based on both their aesthetic appeal and the resonance they hold for me. Flocking, resin and other commercial/industrial products have become integral elements in my work, as have more domestic items such as clothing and tampons. I am drawn to unusual combinations, particularly those that create a formal tension. I have come to realize that certain associations could be drawn from those juxtapositions, even though they are not always part of my original intent. The materiality of the pieces elicits a wide range of interpretations, including issues surrounding domestic spaces, design, gender, and sexuality-issues often associated with Feminist Art.
At first glance, Flowers appears to be a wall installation of colorful, floral bubbles. It is only upon closer inspection that the "flowers" are recognizable as tampons, thus subverting the decorative veneer of the piece. In Wallflowers, wood-grained Formica is contrasted with a floral-patterned paper created in the process of dying tampons for Flowers.
Sexbombs are freestanding sculptures, hybrids of sex toys and bombs. Their pink, super-slick car finishes allude to manufactured objects of desire. A companion piece to Sexbombs is Conflation of My Obsessions, Fall 2001 (hot-spots where the united states has dropped bombs and where the boys I've been obsessed with have absconded in the last six months). A four-panel wall piece, Conflation is comprised of shiny pink circles dotting fields of olive green flocking.
In all of these pieces, the private and the public collide, humor and serious intent overlap. I have reduced the personal to formal elements of design, blurring the line between the decorative and the conceptual.
Click here for a gallery of works by Alesha Fiandaca