Laura Wacha
Artist Statement
August 2007
Born and raised in kitschy old Florida about 40 years
before the turn of the century, I grew up going to pro-wrestling matches,
eating tongue and ketchup sandwiches on Wonder Bread and attending Brownie
meetings with my best friend Tina. When one day Tina’s beloved calico cat
Pebbles crawled into the warm clothes dryer for a nap, Tina’s mom sent Pebbles
spinning to her death. Even as I consoled my bereft buddy, I could see the
humor in the tragedy, after all, did Pebbles not go “Bam-Bam”? Happily, I
possessed the wisdom not to laugh out loud, but learned from the experience
to appreciate that each of us has a our own reality and that
Truth can be an elusive beast spinning about in a Kenmore.
In my work I explore the out of focus areas of the modern
world both public and private, by showing scenes fraught with incongruities
and conflict. Do you see Botox or botulism? Supermodels or the starving? Fun
fair laser tag or a war-ravaged neighborhood? Domestic bliss or indentured
servitude? Using compositions that are created much like waking dreams, each
non linear narrative is rarely singular in subject and is usually both humorous
and unsettling. I employ many symbols, some personal, some universal, and
am interested in the blurring that can occur between a symbol and the thing
that it symbolizes, as well as in emotional responses to color and the effects
of color juxtaposition. Like representational inkblots, my pictures probably
won’t cure to what ails, but may well be an amusing tool for diagnosis.
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