Contorted Melodies
In every image Audrey Gamponia paints, hollow bodies bellow with distorted sounds. Whether it be the velvet blue blankets harmonizing with striking pink flesh, Alberta, Canada- based artist Audrey Gamponia let’s the symphony sing for itself. As the artist explores representations of the human body, physical sensations come to life while figurative forms expand and contort in space and find new avenues of presenting themselves. For Gamponia, the artist’s own body is part of the process allowing the soon-to-be BFA graduate to confront personal anxieties and what it means to exist as part of the selfie generation. In many ways, all the twisted and tinning sounds of Gamponia’s abstracted figures revolt against everything we’ve come to believe a body should be thanks to the age of the internet. Rather than fixing up static snapshots, Audrey Gamponia brings the body back to a state of feeling, sensing, and evolving. Gamponia’s images are so alive, you can practically hear them calling out in contorted melodies.
Part One: Who is Audrey Gamponia?
Question One: Who Are You?
I’m a Filipino Canadian artist currently based in Edmonton Canada. Me and my family immigrated to Canada when I was 13 and right now I am currently pursuing a Fine Arts degree at the University of Alberta.
Question Two: Who are you as an artist?
I am a representational painter and right now in my final years of my bachelors degree I am focused on figure painting/drawing. As an artist I’ve always been drawn to the human body/figure and the human condition. I love highly rendered/finished works but also see the beauty in the unfinished.
Question Three: In terms of your artistic journey, why are you here and where are you going?
As a kid I’ve always loved drawing characters, particularly anime characters and throughout my teen years I’ve always been artistically inclined. It wasn’t until I started pursuing my Fine arts degree that I learned so much more of art history and all the different art movements that happened to get where we are in contemporary art. I am always constantly looking at different ways of making art, working and trying and as of right now I just want to keep improving and creating.
Question Four: What do you absolutely need your audience to know about you or your work?
I am an introvert, I’m an awkward person 98% of the time and I cry at anything cute, sad and sappy.
I find my works as an introspection looking from the outside. I love the human figure especially the female body.
Question Five: What has the process of making art taught you or given you?
A creative outlet to let all the demons and angels out. It taught me to stay present and to live in the moment and most importantly, it gives me purpose.
Question Six: What keeps you going?
The thrill of making and seeing the final works. The thought of another person experiencing and possibly getting touched by what I make.
Right now I am working primarily in the genre of self-portraiture, I offer an introspective take on my own experiences with bodily dysmorphia and the anxieties brought on by social media. My imagery references the historical mode of European paintings of the passive female body and the “selfie”. I take photographs of myself wearing my personal clothing, surrounded by my own belongings in my day-to-day environment; In poses that are viewed as “intimate” or “private”. I then use photo editing apps to contort my body, choosing different areas to either minimize or emphasize.
By putting myself through the lenses of a camera, I question my own subjectivity of an idealized body as well as my own perception of beauty; By participating in the act of “photoshopping” my own body to suit personal tastes, I question my own biases towards contributing to an idealized female body
Couch Cushion, 12 x 16″, pastel and pencil colour on pastel paper, 2020
| Where/ How can Vacant Museum viewers see more of your work and where can they purchase it? |
| You can view some of my work through my instagram (website is still in the works) IG: @gamponia.audrey |