Artist Statement
I work representationally with human anatomy, oscillating between realism, surrealism, and abstraction involving morphing bodies, hybridized gures and environments. These bodily explorations create a space for nuanced conversations about gender, sexuality, and embodiment that question and complicate the constrictive stigmas and myths imposed onto individuals based on their anatomy, assumed identity, or how they present. By exaggerating or transforming these myths through creating realistic, abject body forms, anthropomorphised objects, human/animal hybrids, and monstrous creatures, I subvert idealized and binary representations of human bodies that we see throughout art history and media platforms. Combinations and conversations between gures, objects, and body parts can be erotic, unsettling, humorous, frightening, at some moments beautiful and at others grotesque. All these modes of reconguring bodies through hybridity can imply dierent kinds of violence or transformation. I'm interested in the ways hybridity can hold space for contradiction and divergence, its ability to express both potentially oppressive and liberating impulses. When humans impose sexual and gender essentializing connotations onto non-human animals and objects, they can emerge as exploitative, objectifying fantasies that can negatively and violently impact real human-human and human-animal dynamics. At the same time, various non-human animals and life-forms present alternate models of sex in terms of anatomy, sexuality, reproduction, and relationships that do not perpetuate the pseudo "naturalist" human narrative of gendered dominance/submission hierarchies. These sculptures raise questions about the dehumanizing impact of social constructs and violence while pointing to the potential for embodiment to be a site for change and possibility.
Bio
Rowen Foster grew up in Houston and Austin TX and is currently based in Seattle. Rowen studied sculpture and creative writing at the Kansas City Art Institute, has an MFA in interdisciplinary sculpture (3D4M) from University of Washington, and has participated in various exhibitions. In creating surreal hybrids and abject representations of bodies, Rowen integrates research based in gender and disability studies, intersectional feminisms, and queer theory with pop culture, mythology, and folk tales through large-scale immersive installations. Rowen's poetry, that follows similar themes, can be found in Sprung Formal, SAND Journal Berlin, and I Wagered Deep On The Run Of Six Rats To See Which Would Catch The First Fire: a surrealist and outsider anthology of poetry and fiction with Thrice Publishing.
I work representationally with human anatomy, oscillating between realism, surrealism, and abstraction involving morphing bodies, hybridized gures and environments. These bodily explorations create a space for nuanced conversations about gender, sexuality, and embodiment that question and complicate the constrictive stigmas and myths imposed onto individuals based on their anatomy, assumed identity, or how they present. By exaggerating or transforming these myths through creating realistic, abject body forms, anthropomorphised objects, human/animal hybrids, and monstrous creatures, I subvert idealized and binary representations of human bodies that we see throughout art history and media platforms. Combinations and conversations between gures, objects, and body parts can be erotic, unsettling, humorous, frightening, at some moments beautiful and at others grotesque. All these modes of reconguring bodies through hybridity can imply dierent kinds of violence or transformation. I'm interested in the ways hybridity can hold space for contradiction and divergence, its ability to express both potentially oppressive and liberating impulses. When humans impose sexual and gender essentializing connotations onto non-human animals and objects, they can emerge as exploitative, objectifying fantasies that can negatively and violently impact real human-human and human-animal dynamics. At the same time, various non-human animals and life-forms present alternate models of sex in terms of anatomy, sexuality, reproduction, and relationships that do not perpetuate the pseudo "naturalist" human narrative of gendered dominance/submission hierarchies. These sculptures raise questions about the dehumanizing impact of social constructs and violence while pointing to the potential for embodiment to be a site for change and possibility.
Bio
Rowen Foster grew up in Houston and Austin TX and is currently based in Seattle. Rowen studied sculpture and creative writing at the Kansas City Art Institute, has an MFA in interdisciplinary sculpture (3D4M) from University of Washington, and has participated in various exhibitions. In creating surreal hybrids and abject representations of bodies, Rowen integrates research based in gender and disability studies, intersectional feminisms, and queer theory with pop culture, mythology, and folk tales through large-scale immersive installations. Rowen's poetry, that follows similar themes, can be found in Sprung Formal, SAND Journal Berlin, and I Wagered Deep On The Run Of Six Rats To See Which Would Catch The First Fire: a surrealist and outsider anthology of poetry and fiction with Thrice Publishing.
