Jan Descartes

Artist Statement

My work uses narrative as a way to filter through my own memories of growing up in rural America, where perhaps ideas of the cultural norm were pulled from various forms of media due to physical and social isolation. In particular, I find myself very interested in questioning certain staples of culture and their effect on the psyche. Romance, sexual identity, femininity, desire, lust, violence, fear and power all play a part in the reality I am questioning and the fictions I concoct.

I am generally interested in taking my inspiration directly from childhood and adolescent experience and my memories of pop culture and juxtaposing it with current experience, pop culture and media. Through that juxtaposition I create something more then homage to adolescence; each part of the whole contextualizes the other and would be flat without its companion. Media creates cultural memories that are accessible by all but are so accessible that they are easily forgotten, they become the lowest common denominator in the cultural stew, the water if you will. I am interested in exploring the hold, and terroristic qualities, that these base memories have over various persons and how that molds the young girl to a woman.