Camille Eskell

My initial approach to the Weir Farm project involved exploring a sense of place, in view of the land and an ongoing reference to growth (through foliage) in my more recent work. As my ideas unfolded, prompted by upheaval in my life, the inquiry broadened to cover greater ground: the focus became one's sense of place - the artist's place - in the world. Visits to the Farm consisted of musing, noting impressions, and collecting bits such as leaves, acorns, and twigs, for possible inclusion in the series. My search was for a common spirit that melded human with earth, stressing an intellectual rather than a physical connection. The notion of preservation and tribute that defined the site suggested themes of persistence and loss, treasure and burial, fossilization and commemoration.

Having recently returned to figurative mixed media sculpture, I continued to work in this vein. I combined cast body fragments with direct or digitally reproduced drawings, and used floral laces, dried and faux flowers as references to romance and revivification. The "artist's hand" becomes a recurring motif, and repeated images of mouths recall the unexpressed.

The presentation formats, in particular, translate the duality and heighten the sense of arrested power. Keepsake boxes hold severed hands and fractured faces like relics or mementos, protecting and entombing them behind sliding doors with dainty ribbon pulls. Torsos hang suspended, and drawings align in intimate installations. Collectively the work questions what the "artist" means, what it mean to be an artist, and ultimately, the means by which one is an artist.