Teacher Name: Melissa Gerleve
Grade: 12
Materials: Paper, Marker, Sculpture
Artist Statement: Blood dribbles down my arm, into my curled sleeves, and absorbs into my calloused skin. Each drop spreads like an incurable disease. The discoloration and sores are a deep pomegranate red, and the paper resembles skin unfurling and pooling with fluid—a process that is rather starkly contrasted with the identity behind my art: one of love and euphoria. My murderous rampage is the playful indulgence of my concentration on “Blood – Surveillance and Perspective”, one in which I reimagine blood to be a symbol of life and death, of family and solitude, of insecurity and religion, and of love and liberation. I begin to question myself in each process as I take blood to be purple, a merging of shades of blood to be fluid and to be complex. I express my art in swirls and almost deformed musculoskeletal representations of my emotions: through “Encased Dreams”, “Hazy Blessings”, “Nectar of the Gods”, “Corazon Morado”, and “Fruitful Dissection”.
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