RAM And Dis/Embodied Power

Two exhibitions at Pirate Contemporary Art Gallery, January 10-26 2025

RAM: Rage Against Misogyny,

And Dis/Embodied Power

Press Release: Pirate: Contemporary Art 01/10-26/2025

RAM: Rage Against Misogyny is a solo exhibition by Stephanie Spindler, featuring guest artist Susan Sternlieb, taking place at Pirate: Contemporary Art. The opening reception is on Friday, January 10, from 6 to 10 PM, and the exhibition will run until January 26.

This exhibition explores the complexities of power dynamics, authority, and the boundaries of personal and political realms. It addresses themes of desire and agency, moving from the serious to the absurd while questioning and critiquing social and cultural stereotypes and philosophical and domestic concepts. The artworks examine what it means to inhabit a female-sexed body and challenge preconceived notions and behaviors related to power, empowerment, and personal boundaries arising from political and intimate experiences.

Spindler will debut her alter ego, M’Powers, and display previously performed interventions, sculptures, and installation art. Spindler does not identify as a performance artist; she creates artwork in public that reflects the material and philosophical inquiries that inspire her creative process. M’Powers acts as a shaman who defies stereotypes and represents the unconventional, creating a reflective encounter that highlights Spindler’s relationship with otherness, phenomenology, and the tensions between expectations and gross misunderstandings of the female sexed body.

Guest artist Susan Sternlieb will present new mixed media encaustic drawings inspired by abundant garden landscapes.

Pirate: Contemporary Art,  Hours, Friday 6-10:00, Saturday and Sunday 12:00-5:00.

Dis/Embodied Power

Opening Reception: January 10th, 6pm - 10pm
Exhibition Dates: January 10-26
Location: Pirate Contemporary, 7130 W 16th Ave, Lakewood, CO 80214

“Dis/Embodied Power" is a rare group exhibition that grapples with the complexities of the individual and collective perceptions of the body, and how power is ascribed within these contexts. A curatorial experiment by Kimberly Faber, this collection includes works from seven standout artists creating the kind of important, culture-shifting work that rarely makes it in front of the public eye. Prone to censorship and rejection, 19 of the 30 included works have never been shown in public.

Sculptures by Chicago-based artist Emma Covode will make their Denver debut, compelling viewers to consider why the social construction of masculinity manifests itself in violence, and how weapons act as physical extensions of our bodies—urgent work given Colorado’s history with gun violence. Sarah Bowling (represented by Rule gallery) presents an ode to the physical changes that occur in a body working in service of itself—increasing its own physical power— while also meditating on the ways in which empowerment of the individual often evokes disgust from the external world. It’s a compelling extension of a performance piece created during her MFA studies at Carnegie Mellon, presented in ceremony with other works that grapple with ownership and the tension of inhabiting an individual body that is also representative of a cultural concept and ideal. Sophia Poppy Ericksen’s work is more overt (and more important) than ever in three never-before-seen glitch works that continue her examination of the triad of body, pleasure, and voyeurism in adult media. Ericksen newly focuses her practice on the adult media that exists within the baffling conundrum of being the most-watched and yet most-vilified within adult media, an important contribution to Digital Dualism in a time where this content may soon be outlawed. As Legacy Russel describes in her essay Digital Dualism and The Glitch Feminism Manifesto, “Glitch Feminism is not gender-specific—it is for all bodies that exist somewhere before arrival upon a final concretized identity that can be easily digested, produced, packaged, and categorized by a voyeuristic mainstream public.” New works from Drew Austin (RMCAD alum, former Dairy Arts Center curator) are a complement to that of Ericksen, as he examines light, shadow, and the domestic space in illustrations and animations sourced from intimate photographs found on high-traffic sites like X/Twitter. Rounding out the show are two fantastic pieces by Pratt alum Kaitlyn Tucek (represented by K Contemporary) that employ romantic and playful imagery to subvert perceptive gender norms and ideas of ownership/ binding/control, along with a series of Faber’s own works that invite viewers to examine the gendered application of fame, legacy, respect, virility, and intellect. Together, Tucek and Faber's work employs gender inversion to challenge the perceptive nature of the gendered gaze and expectation. Finally, carrying an illustrative reference to Tom of Finland, Max West contributes a playful presentation of body-strength-eroticism. Utilizing construction themes and imagery, their piece offers an irreverent and absurdist contribution that exemplifies the themes of the show.

“Dis/Embodied Power” prioritizes work that has been rejected, censored, and even pulled from galleries for “going too far”, being “inappropriate”, or described as “pornographic”, and “ugly,” yet they remain powerful expressions examining the gendered gaze and the dis/empowering of

individuals through the body. Each artist works from a place of careful examination, care, and thought. This is an opportunity to witness the kind of raw, uncensored work that challenges our existing perceptions and moves our culture forward. While gallerists and curators have proven reticent and declined to display many of the included works, this work is transformative and critical. It must be shown. Each piece in “Dis/Embodied Power” is a grappling with bodies and power, and the consequences of how they are perceived based on how they are represented. The exhibition invites viewers to reconsider not just what is seen, but how it is seen—and what it means to inhabit and be inhabited by power.

The artists invite you to experience this transformative exhibition at the opening reception on January 10th from 6pm - 10pm.

“Dis/Embodied Power” will enjoy a short run at Pirate Contemporary, closing January 26th.

Spindlerart WEARABLES

Most people know me for my Contemporary art practice, but I am also an avid Craftivist.

Up-cycling is a passion of mine. I want to feel good, and I want to feel JOY! There is nothing like two, three, or more contrasting patterns reconfigured into something that feels good, has pockets, and I can wear every day! Fashion is political, it can be a platform that says, Joy is a form of resistance! Join me in a rebellious, joyful, and colorful statement!

Statement

Craftivism is my way of disrupting commercial fashion conventions through unique sewing projects. As a contemporary artist and craftivist, I create magic capes, feel-good trousers, and dresses with political pockets. My line of "feel-good" clothing defies norms, sparks the imagination, and generates radical hope, one conflicting pattern and pocket at a time. I believe that clothing is an expression of our beliefs and should defy conventions. My approach is to make clothing fun, comfortable, and joyful. I don't use special techniques other than reinventing things from surplus and damaged fabrics.

Up-cycled cotton triangle dress with appliqué and pockets.

Up-cycled Thai Fisherman Trousers, cotton.

Up-cycled triangle dress, pockets, snap closer, and appliqué. Cotton.

Up-cycled Thai Fisherman Capri. Cotten.

Up-cycled Magic Cape. Pockets and hood with synch. Flannel, cotton scarf, and bed throw.

Up-cycled Overalls. Made from an oversized winter coat.

Bespoke Laser cut earrings, recycled fashion feathers, recycled Jade beads, acrylic and surgical stainless steel posts. Walnut veneer finished with Danish wood oil, Ash wood finished with acrylic. Spindlerart designs.

Upcoming solo exhibition at Pirate Contemporary Art, Denver

A work in progress. Material: paper, vellum, wood frame, and wax. 64” x 120” x 8”

These artworks go through various stages of production. Tis is part of the work above in a different configuration in the studio. It lives on a working wall with my samples to the right,

This is a studio shot of a series of drawings that are happening as I make the installation work. There may be one of the drawings in the show…I’m still working on it!

FRAMED: Her Body

Central to my work is how materiality, representation, and experience might shift ideological paradigms that systematically perpetuate stereotypes, normalize divisive practices, and diminish the body's holistic possibilities. Framed has come from exploring theoretical and pragmatic structures that are internalized into beliefs, cultural norms, and subjective perspectives. Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, historical contexts, and contemporary discourses, my installation serves as a platform for dialogue and introspection. They invite viewers to confront their preconceptions and engage with the profound social and cultural implications of gendered embodiment.

More:

My artwork is my research, the tangible relations of the body -the interiority of bodies or that interface of what a body is.  ‘What is a body?’ This question motivates me, it is personal and political; discrimination, stereotypes, inequality, misogyny, and self-worth are all reasons why I choose to investigate the phenomena of what it is to be a specific body, whatever that is to any body that is marginalized by the universal, white, male and straight body of androcentrism. I choose this because being a female sexed body in Western culture is still discriminated against; this is my experience and point of reference. Equality is often conflated with sameness. This work is important because, as human beings, we are not the same; we have specific bodies that have specific experiences, and these experiences differ significantly, and yet still should be honored, respected, and loved. My intention with my work is to elevate the phenomena of emotive and sensory experiences as equally important as critical thinking as well as heighten the representation of female sexed bodies. These intentions are reflected in my work through material, composition, and ethereal and performative qualities.

s.spindler@me.com
linkedin.com/in/sspindlerart
instagram.com/stephanie.spindler/

Fort Collins Studio Tour 2023

Untitled Prenatal Sojourn 2023 Is an artwork from a series that is inspired by the French Philosopher Luce Irigaray. The ‘Prenatal sojourn’ is the intimacy and connection between mother and child in utero. I am interested in the embodied memory of this connection, this symbiotic relation that is perhaps our first experience of intimacy. This relation is powerful for all bodies as it is a universal journey; before we know or unerstand sex or gender, stereotypes, expectations or discrimination. This relation is before sight, where touch and sound may be the first sensory experiences of life. My work is an exploration of embodiment, interiority and where the visible and the tangible are complicated.

Please visit my studio 10/21-22. You can find the map and info about other artists on the tour with the link below. https://www.fcgov.com/creativecenter/studiotour

Performance Art Weak April 18- 19 2023, CU Experience Gallery, Denver, CO.

I am participating in PAW , Performance Art Week, Cu Denver Experience Gallery, and the Emmanual Gallery, both part of the Denver Performance Art Complex, Denver, CO.

I like to Blow My Own Horn 2014, London, UK Chelsea College of Art

1:00 Wednesday April 19, I will be re-performing I Like to Blow my own Horn, An artwork that playfully addresses female sexuality, desire, and agency.

Materialist Encounter II, (reconstructed image)
(A public making) Collisions Festival, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Black Box Theatre, London, 2016. Mixed media; cardboard, sheet latex, live projection via Periscope app, heat-sensitive fabric, surround sound, and one balloon pump.

As Per-formed, installed at CU Denver Experience Gallery in Denver Performing Arts Complex (April 5-19). As Per-formed focuses on the tangible artifact often resulting from performative and time-based artworks. Performance artists working in all media (iron, audio, projection, social media, durational works, collaborations, spoken word) were encouraged to submit the intentional and arbitrary results of live performative artworks. With this exhibit, artists were asked to consider the visual aftermath of a live action: residual forms, props, outfits, photographs, video clips, publications, and more. Artist Reception 4:30-7:00pm, Wednesday April 19, 2023

Gaze: Power and Politics
Curated by Amanda Pfister Gaze Opening Reception,

Thursday April 13, 5:00 PM  –  8:00 PM

April 13 – May 24

Mark Arts

1307 N. Rock Road | Wichita, KS 67206
(316) 634-2787

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Admission: Free

Office Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Curated by Amanda Pfister, I have been invited to exhibit work that speaks about alternative narratives about women’s bodies and sexuality. The female sexed body is often narrated as taboo; it’s messy, complex and often a source of derogatory and demeaning stereotypes. My work in this show is from the Paperface-Interface series, using material, process, and referencing classical, historical depictions of women. My work communicates desire, the ephemeral and the body, boundaries that are ambiguous, unfixed, and uncertain.

Ecstasy of St. Theresa, 2022, Paper, vellum, silk and thread.

Elephant in the Room

The pink elephant story

In 2011 I was living in Glasgow, I had been organizing art exhibitions in a little cafe’ around the corner from our apartment. I had been living in Scotland for four years with my partner and dog making zero headway in the art community. I had joined an artist collective thinking that this would be something positive; meet people, make friends, and see other aspiring artists work. I did not find community within this collective, when I told other people in the collective that I organized art in a public space, this cute cafe’ with vaulted ceilings, across from the Kelvingrove art Galleries I was met with cold shoulders and upturned noses. I thought this was rude, art is for everyone and everyone at every level can appreciate art. For an exhibition of work that I had done that I was exhibiing in this Cafe, or as I liked to call it Montgomery’s Cafe’ Gallery, I made a little love and hate letter to the art community; my pink elephant.

The elephant was loved by everyone. I designed it so it was an accordion and was able to flat pack the work. I did show the elephant again in Glasgow at the Briggait. A beloved artist studio that housed many creatives.

The Briggait, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

After so many years, a doctorate degree, a move across the pond, the pink elephant is now living its best life, temporarily, at the Niza Knoll Gallery in Denver.

Elephant in the Room, a Juried Exhibition

915 Santa Fe Drive
Denver CO 80204
On view April 7–June 4, 2023

Show opens this week during First Friday Art Walk on April 7, 5-9 pm!
Join us for an Artist Reception on Friday, April 21, 5-8 pm

Niza Knoll Gallery specializes in intriguing conceptual exhibits. Located in Denver's vibrant Art District on Santa Fe. Visitors are welcome to view and purchase work during the current hours as listed above or online at www.nizaknollgallery.com. 
 

GALLERY HOURS 
Thursday–Sundays, 1-4 pm
First Friday Art Walks: April 7, May 5, June 2, 5-9 pm
 Sundays on Santa Fe Art Walk: Sundays, April 30 & May 28, 11-3 pm

Pirate: Contemporary Art

Paperface-Interface Exhibition Januray 6-22, 2023

Paperface-Interface is an exhibition showing artworks exploring female representation; started at a residency in Rome, Italy 2017 and includes current work. Paperface-Interface, film still, 18:40 Artist, Stephanie Spindler.

Paperface-Interface is a series of works exploring female representation; started at a residency in Rome, Italy 2017 and includes current work. The work continues to explore drawing, touching and being touched, fear, desire, and intimacy.  This exhibition is a mapping, exploring a female sexed body where there is tension between a fleshy reproducer and a cultural producer. It is a process and a product of becoming. Asking questions about the boundaries of the body, embodiment, and ambiguity.

Pirate: Contemporary Art
7130 W 16th Avenue, Lakewood, CO  80214

Opening Reception Friday, January 6, 2023, 6:00-10:00

Gallery Hours:

Friday 6:00 to 10:00
Sat & Sun Noon to 5:00

About Pirate:

Pirate: Contemporary Art is a member run co-operative art space dedicated to showing the latest in contemporary art.  Pirate’s goal is to display current trends in art, focusing on showing the best of local artists. For over 43 years Pirate has provided a place for Denver-area artists to show their work and to experiment with new ideas and concepts.   As a non-profit, Pirate fills the gaps left by the commercial and public sector to advocate issues in art education, art activism, and promotion of unrepresented artists. 

www.pirateartonline.org

Fort Collins Studio tour 2022

Find out More

Riachuelo June 23. 2022 Cedaredge, Colorado.

Journal entry, June 23, 2022.

June 23, 2022 Riachuelo, Cedaredge, Co.

When I was an undergraduate sculpture major, the rule was if you can’t make a ‘good’ sculpture, make it big and red. I have never made a red sculpture, until a few days ago.

Reflecting, I have to ask myself about the rules. It has taken me so long to make sculptures again. I had vowed at one point not to. But as a dear friend recently reminded me, objects and images can be a point of contact for thought, consideration, contemplation, beauty… Beauty in that our bodies engage with materials. We feel through our bodies, we engage in the world through experiences, we don’t have to limit these engagements to virtual experiences and we cannot. It is not possible. We, collectively, are embodied beings not parts of a whole, but whole unto ourselves as worthy of love and belonging despite our fragility, imperfections, doubt and whatever fears we have about who we are and how we fit into or are a part of this moment.

Drawing.

Handmade paper and latex.

#mybodymychoice

Riachuelo June 2022

Residency June 2022 Riachuelo

Making Things in the Dark

Studio at Riachuelo.

This place is a healing space. You can feel it as soon as you walk on the property. It’s made with love and graft. The energy here is peaceful, and every day I wake up feeling something I haven’t in a long while, peace. It’s quiet, inspired, and surrounded by nature, birds, bugs, and the stream that runs through the property. It’s slower here, and I think that I need that. I am unplugged from a busy world; this is precisely the point. 

It’s never what I think it will be; the idea is strong, the strategy good, but there are flaws. The idea for ‘making things in the dark’ comes from the thesis work I did in the last seven years. I had relinquished control of what the final outcome might look like or be. I was investigating the process of how my specific subjectivity might correlate and be expressed in the making of something. Relinquishing control is s still the objective, but I’ve had to let go of control anew. I try to pretend that I know what that is until I start doing work. 

My intention here at Riachuelo was to pick up some work from the past. Casting forms from latex bladders that I had sewn or combining some of the materials and casting both previously made materials in combination with new latex. That isn’t lost, although as I’m reminded, I’m not that person anymore. I always work in the present, so my expectations of doing work that I had created before would never happen. 

 I am searching for the language, texture, shape, volume, color, density, and something I can’t articulate with words. Something intrinsically linked with the emotive and physical intellect of expressing complexity; what I sense around me, and within. It’s the search for the imperfect, intricate, dynamic, and invisible/visible. It’s a sensitivity to material and accepting ugly, damaged, flawed objects. It’s not about making the perfect sculpture. I don’t think I know what that is anyway. Still, it’s about creating a form that resonates with trauma and healing, imperfection and disorder. 

Volume made from latex, cardboard and hydrocal, in progress.

After spending a couple of days fumbling through construction and casting, I’m starting to stop myself from judging everything that I make. I’m making these vessels from recycled artwork that I made before; I am casting the inside without being able to see what I get. I think this is ok. I want to make new form, and I would be bored if I made something predictable. It’s not easy to let go of control; although decisions are to be made, aesthetic and meaning are phenomenological choices. What I mean by that is the qualities of the work have to resonate on the emotional, intellectual and physical level to hit the sense of what ‘it’ is in this moment. Challenging, but it also satiates my desire to think and engage.

Upcoming residency at Riachuelo…June-mid July 2022.

Stephanie Spindler exploring the fantastic views around Cedaredge.

I will be the first resident artist at Riachuelo Artist retreat. A project that is born like a falcon out of ashes. What is Riachuelo? The home and property of the late Steve and Janet Baird is currently being developed to preserve and generate the humanitarian spirit they both embodied. The Baird's lived joyful lives, contributing so much to their family, communities-local and global; they were innovators, happiness-builders, and genuinely inspiring people. Sadly, they have both passed on and left their legacy in all they have built, shared, and cultivated with us, the fortunate people to have shared their exuberance for life. Their daughter, Regna Frank-Jones, has been left the guardianship of the property that the Baird's built over four decades and is turning it into an artist residency and retreat, Riachuelo. I will list some further details below.

I have recently finished my Ph.D. in Fine art, and I am eking out a new life in Colorado with my partner and dog. I have been paddling like mad to settle into our new adventure here. The residency will be a renewing process for me, taking the six weeks at Riachuelo to dive back into my artist life. I have things that I want to pick up and things that I want to forge forward with. I will be starting with a theme, 'Making things in the dark'.

'Making things in the dark' is a subject that resonates with the uncertainty that has come to the surface as something we like to pretend isn't happening! Even though uncertainty is a constant in our lives, we would rather 'know' than accept that uncertainty is the most consistent reality. Control and spontaneity have a compelling relationship and 

I am exploring this in my artwork. 'Uncertainty' is entangled with intimacy, desire, fear, and hope. A process that relinquishes control and looks at the unexpected as something also 'unknown .' I had a method of making in my most recent work, the Boxing Series, but I never knew the outcome. It did cause me anxiety, but it was also exciting, creating something new to question. I thought of the process of making as a collaboration between my body and material. I considered my body as part of the dynamic material engagement of wrestling cardboard boxes until it was changed into something less neat, less structured, and creating something messy, organic, chaotic, and usually strange. 

I will be starting with drawing and casting, two things that I have consistently done in my artistic practice. Experimenting with getting to know the marks that I can make, trying to recognize who I am now in this present moment through the energy of the drawing. A visual diary that will accumulate over the six weeks of the residency. This coincides with a new biological stage of being a woman, no longer young but not yet 'old .' Perhaps age is a state of mind and age is the amount of living experience we have; regardless, as we grow, our perspectives change. Transitions are often the most challenging time in our lives, thrilling and daunting.

I have also created a public project for the Cedaredge community while I am the resident artist called 'The Dinner Party.' A temporary collective of artists chosen from the immediate vicinity of Cedaredge to create a community. Within this group, we will share our perspectives and create site-specific artworks in the home of the late Baird's property and now, Riachuelo. We will meet over four dinners to share our practices as artists, feed our creative need for exchange, and create an exhibition to be open to the public in October. 

I am very excited about this opportunity! I will be posting a regular blog about the residency, which you can read here or on the Riachuelo Facebook page. This new venture will be developed over time, evolving and growing as we go. You can find more information below. 

About Riachuelo:(Ri-achue-lo) Riachuelo is the name of a new artist residency and retreat located in Cedaredge, Colorado, on a property built by Steve and Janet Baird. The name, Riachuelo, comes from ‘Ria’a beloved pet dog, and ‘Chuelo,’ the Portuguese word for creek. The Bairds moved to the area in 1981 and developed the land over the course of four decades. They were an extraordinary creative couple who lived by the fundamental values of kindness, service, adventure, stewardship, and hospitality. They lived passionately and with joy. Janet and Steve have recently passed away, leaving guardianship of the home to their daughter Regna Frank-Jones. To preserve and celebrate her parents’ life and legacy, she is opening up the property to host creatives and travelers to retreat, create, work, and find inspiration in a remarkable place.

THE DINNER PARTY AT RIACHUELO is a collaborative, community project designed to gather a group of nine artists to engage, co-create, and become inspired around a shared experience.

About THE DINNER PARTY: To introduce Riachuelo to the community, we are doing a project centered around a series of dinners, conversations, and the creation of site-specific art. Artists are asked to apply and will be chosen based on their interest, work, and enthusiasm to participate. The group will meet weekly in June over four dinners, and each artist will be invited to design and create an artwork that considers the unique property and home to be temporarily shown there. The artwork will be made off-site and installed for an exhibition and gathering in mid-September.

The project will culminate in a community event at Riachuelo to celebrate the works created by the group. The event will be an open house where people come to meet the artists, see the exhibition, tour the property, listen to music, and enjoy nibbles and libations. 

This project provides an opportunity for artists, painters, sculptors, poets, musicians, and performers to build relationships, discuss ideas, and exhibit new work. Riachuelo’s artist in residence, Stephanie Spindler, will facilitate these group dinners, and participants will learn about the legacy of the property and get to know one another through conversation and feedback about the work proposed by each artist.

How to apply: If you would like to participate in the Dinner Party project, please submit a short letter of interest and tell us a little about yourself(500 words max)and include up to five images of your work in a pdf format to stephanie.spindlerphd@gmail.com or a link to representations of your work. Please submit your email with the Dinner Party interest as the subject. All kinds of artists are welcome to apply; however,  we are looking specifically for artists local to Cedaredge and Delta County.

Participation is limited. There is no fee to apply. The dinners will be vegetarian, alcohol-free, and you are asked to attend all of the dinners. 

Deadline to apply:  May 13

Notification:  May 20

Dinner dates:

Thursday, June 9, 5:00pm- 8:00pm

Thursday, June 16, 5:00pm- 8:00pm

Thursday, June 23, 5:00pm- 8:00pm

Thursday, June 30, 5:00pm- 8:00pm

Art Installed: Week of September 11-15

Public Exhibition and Event at Riachuelo: September 17 and 18

I Like to Blow My own Horn: Junk to Mouth Resuscitation

This artwork was created for International Women's Day 2019, Revolt She Said: A Cabaret hosted by the Feminisms and Subjectivities Research Group at Chelsea College of Art.

This work came from thinking about female sexuality and self-love. Using the iconic, magical, and symbolic power of the unicorn, I took control of ‘my horn blowing.' It is and was, in fact, a way of poking fun at the fear of masturbation but also claiming women’s right to pleasure through the acts of their own desires.

The performance was ambiguous, awkward, and intense for me and the audience. I dressed elegantly and extravagantly while making the mating sounds of a feral animal and blowing up my libido as well as letting it go flaccid. This is a personal and political act as a survivor of sexual assault. Well into my adult years, I carried blame and powerlessness around my sexuality as a woman. I grew up in a generation where sexism was the norm. I embodied these normalities in unhealthy ways; depression, anger, and self-hate. To be a female sexual being meant to be promiscuous, as a girl, as a woman, I would risk public shaming and slander if I acted on my desires. Fear is a dominant element around understanding the female sex; the normal processes of the body are still taboo, humiliating, and keep us from being equal or even human through the patriarchal gaze.

Lorna Milburn's photographs at Lorna Milburn Photography document and re-enact the power of my sexual energy as a woman; independent, sexy, in control, and fierce.  This act is to expose. This artwork is to be with and confront negativity, sexual manipulation and to encourage body positivity.

I Like to Blow My Own Horn: Mouth to Junk Resuscitation, March 6, 2021, Photo by Lorna Milburn

I Like to Blow My Own Horn: Mouth to Junk Resuscitation, March 6, 2021, Photo by Lorna Milburn

I Like to Blow My Own Horn: Mouth to Junk Resuscitation, March 6, 2021, Photo by Lorna Milburn

R.B.F. M'Powers

Introducing my alter ego R.B.F. M’Powers:

Ties to Transgress

This artwork started with the object of a tie. I was thinking about what the formal garment might symbolize and how it might function pragmatically and symbolically. The garment is the raw material of the artwork that was undone and remade into something else. The activity was an exercise in undoing and transforming; the experience of making is object and process-oriented, including performance, representation, and experience. 

This fastener, the tie, strongly signifies a gendered identity.  It is worn, predominantly by men, knotted around the neck as an adornment to convey a sense of formality.  A very public piece of clothing that has iconic references to a sense of seriousness, respect, business - it can also be conceived of in terms of a visual reference to the phallus. I interpret this as a category of dress as having materialities through which we perform. Ideologies of gender have power over the public because they are expressions that concern distinct groups. I am interested in how subject positions might enable or create agency changes concerning patriarchal constructions of gendered stereotypes.

My thoughts on both power and transformation are part of the artwork's transformative process and the alter ego. It is my practice to embrace vulnerability as a methodology. It requires reflection and reflexivity, meaning thinking about what I have done and comprehending the subject of transformation that includes me as part of the content.

What did I do? I chose the material because I had already expressed in another artwork that I understood the tie as an object of relevance, a signifier of a specific state of being.

I unpicked the tie, I thought about what it could be, I thought about what kind of message or meaning my specific relation to power is. The action of undoing reflects my narrative. For a long time, 'Power' was the 'other' to me; it was not something that I could feel or possess or embody. I never had distinguished 'power' as something that could be more than one thing, such as control, authority, governance, regulation.

My thoughts about a tie as a garment are:  it is something that divides the head from the torso and limbs, it restricts movement, it can create a sense of physical and mental discomfort for the wearer of the tie and, the person witnessing or experiencing the message of the wearer. Formality, authority and, a sense of distinction are characteristics that I think of when recollecting personal, social, and cultural experiences.

I had recently read a novel Unladylike A Grrrl’s Guide to Wrestling (2019) by Heather Bandenburg; her story into feminism and wrestling. It's a beautiful narrative, and I only found it post my form of wrestling that I have been doing as an art practice I called Boxing. To paraphrase 'boxing,' I wrestled cardboard boxes to create interventions and sculptural forms. I used my body as the instrument to make changes to cardboard boxes in the form of physical contact.

Wrestling is an intense, intimate and, public sport where a certain amount of pretension exists. The transformation of my tie became my wrestling mask. I transform the tie into an eye-catching front that also is a form of empowerment.

The UAL Mead Rome Residency 2017

            I have been selected to participate in the University of the Arts PhD studio residency at the British School of Rome (The BSR). The Mead Rome PhD Studio Residency joins the existing programme of Mead Scholarships and Fellowships which support UAL students in the pursuit of excellence through their creative practice and research. The residency provides an opportunity to further develop my Ph.D. investigation of a ‘phenomenological identity', a proposed liminal place between context and body, in a working studio, invigorated by the rich diversity that Rome offers and the support of the community at the BSR. You can find out more about the Britsh School in Rome here: BSR.

Mk Calling 2017

Preview: Thursday 20 April / 6-10pm / Free / All Welcome

Book free tickets here

“This spring, MK Gallery showcases new and exciting work by over 70 emerging and established artists in MK Calling 2017. This exhibition is designed to celebrate the breadth of creativity around Milton Keynes and will include a wide range of art forms alongside a dynamic programme of events and participatory sessions.” http://www.mkgallery.org/exhibitions/mk_calling_2017/ 

Threshold: a site specific artwork by Stephanie Spindler that is a part of

MK Calling 2017: This Exhibition showcases new and exciting work by over 70 emerging and established artists at the Milton Keynes Gallery

            This was a unique opportunity to work in the Milton Keynes Gallery that is at the start of expansion and renovation of its main exhibition building. I chose to utilize the invitation to work on site and respond to the theme of construction/deconstruction that looks at the architecture and the building in its current state. The slippery, ‘in-between’ things, is something that I focus on in my practice base research; interactions that happen in the middle of here and there. A form of otherness that is vulnerable because of the unknown, ambiguity or uncertainty that is part of ‘becoming’. Threshold is about considering the relation of the body to the precariousness of change; the phenomenal and metaphorical transformation when moving from one place to another. The site is intrinsic to our negotiation through the distance between things, the boundaries of the body, self and what is unknown, intermingling contemporaneously.

Collisions Festival 2016: A Materialist Encounter

The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama is at the forefront of Practice as Research in performance. COLLISIONS is the annual event that showcases our thriving PaR community, specifically allowing research degrees students and creative fellows to collectively engage with what it means to be researching through practice and to share this with a wider academic audience.

“Collisions” refers to the collision of disciplines, methodologies, ideas and practices. It provides a platform for experimentation and exploration, with the practice shared likely to be processual, interrogative and exploratory, rather than highly polished and produced.

Through showing the work in this context – in momentarily opening up both creative and research processes to public scrutiny – we hope COLLISIONS acts as a fertile environment in which to exchange ideas. Through exhibiting our practice, we want to provoke and incite dialogue, so please check out our programme of events, come along and get involved.

COLLISIONS 2016 takes place from Tuesday 27th to Thursday 29th September. All events are free, however advance booking is recommended and can be done directly on each artists' event page, 

http://www.collisionscentral.com/

Me You Me 28.04.2016

Me You Me: Boxing at Camberwell College of Art

Me you me: Boxing at Camberwell College of Art

RAUM Gallery, Camberwell College of Art

May 2-6, 2016

Artist Talk Thursday May 5, 18:00

I am a second year Ph.D. student at Chelsea Collge of Art. You can read my academic research abstract below. I have been using my body and material in a process of co-emersion. The co-emersion is a process; two or more materials merge to form something that is neither of its original elements and forms something new. The making relies on a sensitivity of the material being formed in a physical way, attentiveness to the material in which it is being manipulated regarding its own attributes and the relation of the manipulator/manipulation and the environment. 

My research began with an interest in disembodiment and led me to investigate representation, experience, and materiality. I am interested in how the sexed body constitutes identity, using the backdrop of women as a situation.  The practice generates sculptural installation and questions that are embodied in the performance of the artwork. Please join me for the artist talk Thursday May 5 at 18:00.

Research Abstract

A Phenomenological Identity: The State of Being a Woman. (Working Title)

  This practice-led research seeks to explore the structure of experience, using the philosophy of phenomenology with a feminist perspective in relation to a sculptural installation practice. I am working with representation, materiality, and experience; and spatial, temporal, and performative elements that are central to the ontological questions of the nature of space, time, and the sexed body.

The sculptural installation practice generates questions from the performativity of making and engagement with the artwork: How might a sculptural installation art practice manifest new perspectives from a feminist phenomenological perspective through the specificities of a sexed body and material, spatial, and temporal considerations? How might a concept of a phenomenal woman shift expectations of female identity and make explicit the role of the sentient body as a means of knowing through a creative practice?

The practice is an enactment of a feminist phenomenology, supported by theories of embodiment and new materialism. It is the investigation of the interrelation of what can happen between things, between the viewer and the artwork and the constitution of the encounter of the artwork that is most vital to experience, representation, materiality, and what a phenomenal woman might be.