Artist Profile
Adriane Herman
Visual Artist Fellow (2000)
Studio Resident (2014-2015)
Rocket Grant (2015)
Exhibitions/Performances (2015)
Statement of Work
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I trace the seemingly alchemical trajectory from intention to action, observing what humans consume consciously as well as what we unwittingly take onboard then work to jettison, i.e., physical and
psychological baggage. My work as an experience broker is grounded in reciprocity and allows, if not requires, me to surf synchronicity. Researching how to live consciously, I seek mentorship from strangers and leverage the power of witnessing. I find it easier to justify doing something for the sake of art than for the sake of life. Though my penultimate body of work involved collecting, studying, and reflecting back thousands of other people’s grocery and other “to do” lists--i.e., archiving other people’s trash--I am resolved that my art now occasion opportunities for myself and others to offload things.
With knowing and unknowing collaborators, I suspend, amplify, and ready for redistribution the infectious energy embedded in gestures of letting go. Serendipity led to my undertaking a series of photographs chronicling the ease and grace with which some people shed objects with which their agreements have expired, as well as waxing and waning mounds of materials ready for repurposing. Monumentalizing both accumulation and release, they embody barely controlled chaos and these intimate yet anonymous heaps reflect how we use our most valuable resources: time, energy, attention, and space. Materially manifest in the strata are human intentions, accomplishments, failures, procrastinations, and the inexorable march from birth to death, with (if we’re lucky) many trips to the dump or curb in between.