LaThoriel Badenhausen Artist Statement January 2025
I make art because I love to play.
My “toys” are most often discarded, common domestic products which necessarily possess social-political and gender-class bias. I expose the inherent conflict between two or more products so I may ameliorate or at lease neutralize the conflict. I poke, mock, interrogate, and repurpose the products with needle/thread, paint/paste, plaster/rhinestones, fabric/collage and all manner of combinations.
Ultimately, it is my intuition which “solves” the “conflict,” and results in a humorous, humble object built of numerous once conflicting life views now in dialogue.
By making art, I find friendships and my kin.
I make art to connect with myself. I am focused on what it means to be a contemporary woman artist whose shadow packs tales, customs, and products along with misogynist beliefs and behavior I witnessed growing up in rural America during 1940-1950s. And, I make art to find and connect to my tribe.
My materials are feminine and domestic products including textiles, thread and fabric; feminine hygiene products, plaster, hair nets, bullet cartridges, beads, salt, paint; and text in the form of admonitions, religious tenets, wellness advice and vernacular humor.
What I actually do: I play. In play, my imagination instigates a problem not ever meant to be
definitively solved but to be poked, mocked, and interrogated. I do all this using low-tech traditional art practices, such as, sewing, painting, drawing, cutting/pasting. My “final” “resolution” will determine which mediums are required to bring the work or object to actualization.
LaThoriel Badenhausen
lathoriel@mac.com
@lathorielbadenhausen
NYAC.org//LaThoriel Badenhausen