Creation Date
2015
Preview
Medium
ink, sharpie, acrylic, Mylar®, glassine, fabric, vinyl, drawing paper, and wood
Description
Dimensions: various dimensions
Rights
© Andrea Leilani Koga, 2015. Photo credit: Kevin Ferny.
Keywords
installation, transparent, layers, stands, space, contemporary art
Artist Statement
Secrets in families can define an individual and can form and shape the way a family functions. When they come together as a group, everyone has a role that they play. Their individual relationships with each other and with myself, create who they are and how I view them. Secrets are heavy and can also change with time. Having a secret or showing who you really are can cause an individual to build walls around themselves and decide whether they will show those walls to certain people. Parts of their walls I can easily see and some are blocked by who they have become and what part of themselves they want to share with me. I know who these individuals are and where they have been, yet each figure is just as much a mystery to you as they are to me.
Comparing who they were when I was younger with who they have become has created visual layers of each figure in this series of work. There are five layers that each figure has and each material represents different parts of them. The figures are layered differently depending on who the individual is. Each figure is protected by their own structure, are all created by the same material, and stand together as one piece. They are built from the same wood and contain the same papers, plastics, and fabrics, yet they all have their own presence. Some of the structures are built with more stability and material, and some are more open representing how much I understand that person and where our relationship stands. All the figures seem to be doing something and possibly interacting with each other, which pushes the viewer to think about what they might be doing, who they are, and possibly relate with the piece.