Artist Statement 2010

Dawn Breeze
Artist Statement 2010

I work with a wide variety of mediums and materials including: natural and found objects, clothing, seeds, dirt, photographs and cement. I explore my personal relationship with grief, love, and mental illness; examining the fragile yet powerful brevity of life and the innate connection between all that is. My approach to the work is intuitive in nature, I collaborate with chance, accidents and impermanence. I include marks of time and wear, emphasizing beauty in imperfection. My inspiration is unbound from category, thus flowing freely between artistic disciplines and forms. The thread of artistic inquiry and intention is what connects the work, whether it be performance, painting or sculpture.

My work is greatly influenced by the transformative experience's of giving birth and the death of my sister. I am curious about the connecting points in the eternal life cycle, and the depth of love. My current work is a form of syncretism; the work collides and transmutes disparate eclectic objects and ideas through artistic alchemy, creating new life, new meaning and surprising harmony. It acknowledges that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect - that the only truth in this reality is constant change, and that love is life's elixir. It celebrates the beauty of the limited mortality of an object, the transcendence of form and the liberation of life from the material world.

There is a sincere urgency behind my inspiration, I am compelled to create artistic expressions of feelings and thoughts; my artwork is my heartwork and a cathartic experience. While engaged in my artistic process, elusive emotions and concepts emerge visually, physically and symbolically. My finished work is always a surprise greeting me over the edge of fear. Only when I have surrendered completely to authenticity can I then see things from a new perspective. It's at this point where my work transcends previously held ideas of truth, provoking a deeper personal understanding of life.