ARTIST STATEMENT

 

 

The artist presents us an object from daily life – a mechanical hand dyer, as those in many public toilets; a ready-made, hence, but subject to intervention, as we shall see.

 

On the unfolded hand towel, a few lined-up figures were embroidered: hybrid beings, with human bodies of a very immature age and heads of little mice, in a surrealistic and dreamlike synthesis that brings the appeal of absurd to a mode of artistic statement.

 

The artwork title Roger could appear as (ir)relevant; an English name which suggests us a male identity for the figures that were repeatedly embroidered on the towel. At the same time, in the English language, “to roger” is also used as an expression of common slang to refer to the sexual act. Roger is moreover used in radio communications as a synonym for “affirmative”.

 

Her penchant for words and puns, and for the use of language as a visual exercise, can be extended to the titles, as in this case, where, by way of it, the readability of the work is opened to multiple possibilities of interpretation.

 

In her work, Ana Jotta frequently summons the absurd of daily life so as to give it a new meaning and force us to look at common objects in a different way, either by changing a detail or by introducing new associations through a word. The resort to hybrid objects and the constant differentiating of the media being used, ultimately suggests various languages “in a constant detour from the idea of authorial mark”, as was mentioned in the text of the exhibition s/he is her/e (Ricardo Nicolau, Lisbon 2008).

 

AG

November 2011