Amber Arifeen

Artist Statement

I am concerned not with the Subject, but with the constitution of the subject, by the process of violent transformation that constructs the Subject. I am not concerned with what is essential in being a South Asian Woman, on the contrary, I reject this notion of essentiality*, that all things have fixed properties or an essence that defines their form. Rather, I am interested in establishing the opposite. What is ‘essential’ is a construction and imposition, and not intrinsic. It is my view that the form arises from the Self, i.e, it is the Self that makes the form (an idea that has been proposed by existentialist philosophers). To exist is to exercise the Self and help shape the form that defines it. This series of sculptures speak to this idea. I begin the sculptures with random objects, CD’s, plastic cups, wires to construct a skeleton and then I build a number of layers on it, with paper, glue and plaster until a form begins to show. By the end of this process I have forms that resemble female bodies, but are in no way identical or similar. The curves point to a female body, but each form is unique and different. One might be quick to think that it is these curves that give the forms their “female bodily” essence – however the process with which these forms were created and transformed subverts this notion and proves that it is the “existence of the forms that precedes the essence”. *