Megan Solis (San Antonio, USA): Wake and Easy-Bake Oven
- duration 27 min
- Watch: 11th August 2017 at 7 pm UTC
DESCRIPTION: In the piece, “Wake and Easy-Bake Oven” is a performative film in which I gut and re stuff a pink rabbit toy, snort over the counter drugs/pills like Tylenol PM, or Vitamin C tablets, spin and dance in delusion while through out the performance my collaborative musical partner, Brandon Pittman induces dreamy sounds as atmospheric consciousness for these theatrical peaks and valleys. With this, I alternate in and out of misapprehension with the environment. I start the movie in a closed, claustrophobic space on a blank white wall, complete with a brownish-taupe, almost mindless carpet in my apartment, that leads into an open empty view of a beach in Corpus Christi, Texas. Moments of either a light daydreaming, or a refusal to remember certain repressive thoughts, you begin to see that certain events cause a drastic switch. The candied red girl stares at us as she stands in the myst of this otherworldly beach. The narrative of the performance delves into avoidance of situation and allows both the girl and viewer to let go of tangibility, and all its restrictions. Because of this indistinct, watery switch between reality and imagining, we face our own misconceptions and shrewdness. On top of this, the morality and judgement of the red person is also put into question as she ingests these over the counter drugs as if she is snorting cocaine, stopping us from really trusting her mind. If there was any initial innocence or magic interpreted into her trance they have instead been constantly interrupted by the undertones of self-deprecation and dark irony. She is not falling into dreams or by her precious recollections naturally but instead needs these drugs to travel into this world of fantasy. As the movie ends, viewers are led to believe that she is spiraled into a sort of resolution as the girl drifts into the ocean, hopefully to escape her fate, only to be brought back to the same exact place in complete dejection. She is stuck in the situation at hand and we see that she will indeed be forever lost.
BIO: With her B.F.A from the University of Texas at San Antonio, Solis concentrated on painting and performance art with a strong conceptual practice. Locally, she has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at The Lullwood Group, Silkworm Gallery, UTSA Main Gallery, High Wire Arts Gallery, San Antonio Art League Museum, and R Gallery. Solis has also gained international exposure through a 2015 artist residency at Arteles Creative Center in Haukijärvi, Finland, and most recently completed an artist residency following a solo show at Hello Studio in San Antonio in 2016. Forthcoming, Solis will have a solo exhibition at the McNay Art Museum, and will be apart of a group show \”Artist Statement #2\” at the Czong Institute of Contemporary Art Museum in South Korea. ARTIST WEBSITE