Shelby Slayden
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Between Us (front)
2019
Acrylic paint on couch upholstery and felt appliqué on fleece cushion cover.
5' x 4' x 2.5'
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Between Us (side)
2019
Acrylic paint on couch upholstery and felt appliqué on fleece cushion cover.
5' x 4' x 2.5'
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Between Us (back)
2019
Acrylic paint on couch upholstery and felt appliqué on fleece cushion cover.
5' x 4' x 2.5'
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SUNBURN Line (2 and 3)
2019
Hand painted denim, organza, and felt appliqué
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The Flood
2020
Marker on bristol paper, digitally edited
11" x 14"
Statement
My work concerns the idea of “paradise” and the complexity that it holds, particularly in reference to my childhood in Miami. I am approaching my childhood from a current perspective, reanalyzing and sorting through the emotional intricacies of my understandings of family, home, self, and my current relationships to these entities. These cycles of memory are essential to my work, creating connections between my past and present selves and their differing emotional perspectives.
I am exploring the duality and nuance associated with the ideas of home and comfort, and the ways in which the environment of a home can provide insight into interfamilial dynamics. By delving into the sentimentality attached to people, places, and objects from my past I am exploring how the idea of a home manifests into a fuller understanding of my personal history. Documenting and reprocessing my memories onto the physical surfaces of furniture provides a means for me to preserve fading memories and to attach sentimentality to forgotten images from my past.
While the comforting nostalgia and beauty of home are a central theme in my work, I have also begun to express personal feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, and lack of control that often go unspoken. Emotional projection has become an important and therapeutic element in my work, allowing for a coded way to share inner dialogue. Abstracted characters serve as proxies of myself which tumble through chaotic scenarios at the will of forces beyond their control. Their interactions among stylized depictions of Floridian ecology ground them within my personal dialogue with my surroundings, wavering between fantastical paradise and fever dream.
General Fine Arts (BFA) Students