Artist Talks with Uli Brahmst and Mara Trachtenberg
July 20th, 7pm @ Hera Gallery
AMONG US by Mara Trachtenberg
Monsters are real.
They are Among Us.
Monsters are lurking in our communities, our religious institutions, our courts, our politics, our economics and behind our environmental decline.
Monsters thrive on power; political, religious, legal, economic. They hide behind their power using it to gain more power; monsters’ ends justify their means.
Monsters grew from drawings I made of insects that use automimicry, the ability to transform the appearance of parts of their body to resemble parts of other species such as butterflies with spots that resemble eyes on their wings. Automimicry as a disguise mechanism provides protection from predators, allowing the creature to be mistaken for another so that they are able to hide in plain sight.
Like monsters throughout human cultures, Monsters embody my fear and anxiety around the ever-present abuse and horror in the concurrent political, environmental, and social unraveling that we are bearing witness to. Like the real-world monsters who perpetrate horror and destruction my monsters are not frightening to look at, it is their actions that make them monstrous.
Among Us, is a series of drawings, collages and cut-paper stop motion animations. The original drawings combine text and image and become large scale card board cut outs. The text from the original drawings informs the spoken word prose of the animation. The collages are an exploration of hierarchy, using the human pyramid to examine the structures of power. The animation uses the monster drawings turned into paper puppets to explore the actions of the monsters and their havoc-wreaking.
Among Us, is an entry point into the difficult realities of a culture wherein monsters thrive.
Monster Pyramids
Monster Pyramids are a series of collages conceived as a way for me to visualize hierarchies of power. Monsters are creatures that hold an enormous amount of power that they use and abuse to maintain their power and control.
“Monsters Viral Dances”
In our Social media, chatroom and internet mediated world, information spreads quickly and indiscriminately.
I made the “Monsters Viral Dances” animations in reaction to and a way to participate in the spread of information on social media. During Covid lockdown, people developed dance moves to songs that would go viral, would film themselves doing the dances and share the videos on social media platforms. As these dances spread through my social media feeds, so did misinformation and conspiracy theories about covid.
My Monsters began to dance as a way to participate in the spread of information, that has become its own type of monster whose power and danger lies in the participation of people consuming and sharing it.
About the Artist:
Mara Trachtenberg works in photography, animation, collage, and drawing. She was born in Queens and raised in Long Island, New York. She holds BA in English and Women’s Studies, a BS in Art Education and an MFA in art with a concentration in Photography. After working on her body of constructed photographs, sculptures and animations, A Decadent World for over ten years, she began making drawings and animations. Mara is the RISCA (Rhode Island State Council for the Arts) 2020 and 2016 Photography Fellow and has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally. Her work can be found in private collections throughout the country. Mara lives with her husband, child and dogs in Wakefield, RI and is a former adjunct professor of Photography and Digital Art at the Community College of Rhode Island, and Photography and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island. Currently, she is the President of Sutherland Welles, ltd. A Rhode Island manufacturer of Polymerized Tung oil Wood Finishes.