Mara Trachtenberg:

Works In Progress

Artist Statement

The work in this show is a continuation of Among Us and a new visual exploration of my experience living with Chronic Migraine Disease. They are all works in progress. Beginning in April of this year, I began to experience daily migraine-which has been one of the toughest periods I have had since being diagnosed with chronic migraine in 2020. Relentless pain, fatigue, nausea, light and sound sensitivity as well as dizziness has made daily activities challenging. Making the work for this show through this and despite this feels like a win, though it may not all be in its final form.

I build worlds using cut-paper stop motion animation, collage, sculpture and installation. The world of Among Us features insect/human hybrid creatures who serve as avatars for the human capacity towards monstrosity. This world reflects our world and critiques the hierarchical structures of power, its abuses, violence and destruction. 

Good Guys/Bad Guys is a cut paper stop motion animation that examines cycles of violence that the good guy/bad guy binary sustains, obscuring trauma, fear, power imbalances and the systems that produce harm.  In this animation, the monsters perform gymnastics flipping, rolling, cartwheeling mimicking the circularity of these cycles while the background moves and the words, “Good Guys/ Bad guys are whispered.  The monster’s bodies are the same pattern as the background, making them disappear and reappear mirroring the visibility and invisibility of violence as the backgrounds move and pulse. 

Pattern Wall (Hera 2026) is an installation of original patterns that are made from the designs on the monster’s heads. Creating patterns is an exercise in transforming the unrelenting chaos into something organized and comprehensible. I use these patterns to design an experience that is both overwhelming and beautiful.

The Monster’s Waltz is a cut paper stop motion animation featuring the monsters that uses dance as a means to talk about the use of violence as an abuse of power. The Monster’s waltz is a dance of monsters who dance with weapons of war, their partners in maintaining their power through destruction.

Migraine Self Portraits are photographic distortions of my face made over this summer. They are reflections of what I experience when having a migraine attack. Migraine distorts time, my image of myself , my priorities and my ability to function in daily life.

More About The Artist…

Mara Trachtenberg works in cut-paper stop motion animation, collage, sculpture and installation. Born in Queens and raised in Long Island, New York, she holds a BA in English and Women’s Studies, a BS in Art Education and an MFA in art with a concentration in Photography. Trachtenberg’s Maximalist World Building project, What is In Us Is Among Us explores our world of overstimulation, exploitation and hierarchies both political and social through a feminist lens. Her experimental stop motion animation, Among Us has been screened in “The Experimental Forum”, Los Angeles, CA “The Society for Photographic Education Media Festival”,  St. Louis. MO , “Vastlab Experimental Film Festival”,  Los Angeles, CA  and the “Imagine This, International Women’s International Film Festival”, New York, NY where it received an award for Best Experimental Film. In 2016 and 2020 she received a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship in Photography. 

Trachtenberg is the President of Sutherland Welles, Ltd. and a Board Member at Hera Gallery and Educational Foundation and a former adjunct professor.