My work is primarily inspired by incongruities between perception, experience, and the narratives we are fed. In mining the nuances of these discrepancies with various materials, I find myself exploring our evolving relationships with the natural world, culture, and human vulnerability. As our culture increasingly reverts to simplistic explanations, dialogue and community seem central to my urge to address the disjuncture I experience.
The materials that I work with are derived from the questions and issues that pursue me. I work with a spectrum of mediums including installation, video, sculpture, drawing, and embroidery. Increasingly, I find that collections of ephemera and recycled materials are compelling the work that I want to make. The evidence left behind of how we are living can, I believe, provide a mirror to reveal alternatives to the inevitability of so-called progress.
Everyday, our relationship to the natural world seems more obviously unsustainable,
As the time and place for reflection in contemporary life shrinks, I find the imperative to capture the gaze, the imagination, the critical faculties of viewers/participants becoming even more urgent. I am drawn to working within those fissures where assumptions can be seduced toward questioning, toward action, toward critical thinking.
Wendy Osher
2010