Abigale Page

Artist Statement

The human body is driven by the ritualistic need to consume. When the body does not eat, it becomes consumed with the idea of consumption itself, and in this cyclical momentum the body is both seduced and repulsed by the idea of food. One such stressor which impedes on the need to consume are the processes of disease on the human body, and the psychological and physiological remnants of disease which are present when the body is chronically ill.

I have been sick for a majority of my life with an autoimmune disease which affects my lower intestine, and when my body is sick my intestines begin to consume and destroy themselves. Through self-portraiture, my body is depicted in various stages of pain and decay. The skin of my stomach becomes stretched and strained as it is pulled by various means within charcoal drawings. Castings of rope in metal embody intestinal forms which are served on plates and platters– the body itself becoming a meal. It is within these cycles of sickness and health where my body becomes transformed into the embodiment of the recurrent and ceremonial need to eat and devour.