Collaging consciousness: The porous boundary of self and living world

Abstract

My multidisciplinary art practice which includes collages, paintings, and sculptures (Figures 1-8) aim to illustrate the porous boundary of oneself with the living world. Materials range from paint to objects found in the woods alongside post-consumer detritus and photography. Through photograph collage and assemblage, I juxtapose perspectives to challenge the narrative of a singular identity and reanimate perception rooted in eco surrealist imagery. Through the combination of images and materials, I offer experiences that consider a reciprocal relationship of ecology, feminism, and mythology. The Being of Light, Landing (Figure 1) incorporates processes of collaging images and objects to conjure heterogeneous and mythic experience with the greater world, including our alarming imbalances with it. The centrally featured plant-person which I refer to as a “being of light” was inspired by accounts of near death experiences across cultures. The center image in Goldenrod: merging of the Sky and of the Earth (Figure 2) is a photograph I took from Sky Top Tower which overlooks the Shawangunk Mountains in the Hudson Valley. The local plant, Goldenrod, which has anti-inflammatory properties, is what I hold in my hand as an offering to the local bioregion. By using images and physical objects of nature, tied to a specific place, I combine these elements to honor the earth according to the principles of sympathetic magic, imitation, and contagion. I also keep the original inhabitants of the land in mind. The same Tower is used for inspiration in When the Sky Falls We Rise to Meet It (Figure 3). The illustrated building is based on another photograph from the same hike. This time, the view is zoomed out on the exterior of the tower on the mountain top rather than the view from inside the tower looking out on the mountainous horizon. Created during heights of tension during the pandemic and social resistance, the title and imagery alludes to the collective spirit power of people rising to meet social oppression and environmental catastrophe. My sculptures (Figures 4 and 5) explore these methods through natural and post-consumer materials, yet are often larger in scale to confront the viewer. Bathtub Grotto (Figure 5) investigates the history of grotto sanctuaries, personal Italian family history, and folk Catholic yard structures in the United States juxtaposed with elements of off-grid earth-based design to reclaim a sacred imagination of reciprocity and its essential relationship to earth. I argue that feminine personal sculpture shrines are seeds of resistance in a disenchanted world. My paintings (Figures 6-8) also references imagery from nature collaged into eco surreal merged portrait-landscapes. Source material includes self-portraiture and New York woodlands. Narratives that emerge suggest the uprising of interspecies subconsciousness and the return of the repressed, both wild and feminine, psychic and physical. Melinda Kiefer Santiago (b. 1989, Mt. Vernon, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Queens, NY. She holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from SUNY Purchase College, a BS in Studio Art from Skidmore College, and an Adv. Cert. in Art Education from Hofstra University (and is the recipient of honors and multiple scholarships to fund these degrees). Recent exhibitions and performances include SEPTEMBER Gallery (Kinderhook, NY), An/aesthetics (Rosekill, NY), Flux Factory (Governors Island, NY), ChaShaMa (New York, NY), School of Visual Arts (New York, NY), LABspace (Hillsdale, NY), The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Unison Arts Center (New Paltz, NY), Blink Grand State (Chicago, IL) with solo/two person shows at Flowers for All Occasions (New York, NY) and HiLo (Catskill, NY). She has been an Artist in Residence at Eco Practicum, Ox Bow School of Art, School of Visual Arts, and ChaNorth (Pine Plains, NY). She is currently the Director of Visual Arts at Loyola School.