Source Unknown
An inquiry into the role of the pile within my work, Source Unknown is constructed from over one hundred discarded household items highlighting the dichotomy between private, interior life and efforts to mold external perceptions associated with mid-life success. The home acts as an entryway into the multi-layered human and a symbol of mounting dysfunction that encompasses the nuclear family and the American Dream. Couch parts, chairs, televisions, lamps, and various domestic items are broken, fragmented, over-turned, and precariously placed uncovering the fragility of the mediated image, like a faulty system that will inevitably fail.
Source Unknown functions as a polysemy underscoring the unclear point of origin that one may arrive at when sifting through digital files or a descriptor for one's ignorance to the motivations driving a behavior. A line is drawn linking digital and psychological realms where productivity, and observable output is closely linked to value, and self-worth.
Maladaptation Sits
“Maladaptation” or a failure to adjust adequately or appropriately to the environment or situation highlights a state of paralysis that may result from intense or increased anxiety or fear. Created on-site at Laundromat Art Space, in the Little Haiti district of Miami, FL as part of a three-person show entitled “Waiting Room”. Maladaptation refers to a failed coping mechanism that acts as a thematic thread in Watkins’ work and ongoing research. In line with previous installations of this nature, the work is made up of an accumulation of discarded household objects scavenged from the nearby streets. This act of seeking out objects of want/need aligns with the psychological struggle that occurs when society or the individual attempt to cope with circumstance, instability, and even seemingly simple daily tasks.
Reflecting on the concept of waiting, in daily life along with its grip on contemporary society over time, “Maladaptation Sits,” personifies the underlying neuroses as the illusion of a human sits, waiting, unable to face the chaos of the mind which it is enveloped. This is a continuation of Watkins’ examination into the relationship between the internal experience and the external, public sphere.
There's No Easy Way to Die
Entitled with an off the cuff phrase, recalled from an unknown film, this piece acknowledges viewer and artist's impending mortality with an air of dark humor. This is an acknowledgment of the belongings, accumulated wealth, or debts, problems, and generational trauma inevitably left behind when one dies. This work emerges in line with ongoing studies into the circumstances, effects, and functioning of the pile with relation to human consciousness, consumption, and contemporary life. Built from remnants from site-specific installations collected over the course of a decade, the process acts as a meditation on the people, places, and things left behind. The act of cleaning, deconstructing, sorting, consigning, or tossing calls the moment after their person has passed into focus; this brutal and common time accompanied by the analysis of value is measured by subjective, arbitrary, or societal means. These things, once discarded, emerge in monumental scale, a throne for the dead and for much of the living.
Bed sheets, lamp shades, folding chairs, lamps, ottoman, couch, & arm chair parts, suitcases, washcloths, rags, & vinyl smothered in umpteen layers of paint with colored light.
Under them-there Hills, Mama...
Informed by Watkins’ upbringing in Carrollton, GA, and the contentious history of the American South. Literary techniques such as hyperbole, metaphor, and tone emerge throughout the work drawing connections between social hierarchies, familial relationships, identity, and place. The collapsed, oversized dining table draws attention to the family dinner, a tradition in many southern households. Starting with the patriarch and ruler at the head of the table, the place setting displays “proper etiquette” and more than enough food. To the right, is the next in line. Less food and utensils are present. Sitting across from the head of the table (left) is the matriarch; a powerful status, above most, though, not the king. From her right to left, descending rungs of systemic power are revealed moving toward the center.
The underlying hierarchy is made visible with a gradation of waning resources. Organized chaos is paused in time, as the elaborate setting falls to its demise. Food, splattered paint, and shattered glass lie on the floor between two fractured halves. This open narrative paired with objects of labor (the broom, the shovel, the saw), underscore the efforts of hands unseen. These signifiers accompany a pile of crudely deconstructed chair legs that loom over the space from the shadowy right corner. The alteration of the chair and its legs recur in Watkins’ work, imploring investigation into the ‘object’ and its psychological makeup.
AFFECT-ED, BEING
A contemporary approach to portraiture enacted through a series of installation-based, paintings, sculptures, and video-performance works. Hinging on my embodiment of the subject, four imaginary personae, Donna, Tim, Roeshell, & Kami emerge through narrative devices and hyperbolic affect. Emotional tendencies such as insecurity, dependence, and compulsion are employed in the improvisational performance process and the final installation, displaying a cycle of obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Subconscious-coping mechanisms are revealed in these portraits of the individual, as the human psyche forms and upends what we know of as the person (personality). The domestic space (home), serves as a metaphor for the mind and a gateway to the internal experience while elements of the found and altered objects are personified to underscore the individual’s social status alongside cognitive functioning.
<Accept [(Self) + Elsewhere]
Traveling from Tallahassee, FL to Lake City, SC with a car full of tools and a shade of unrelenting green in my eyes, I was welcomed into the home of two local strangers, who hosted me for the ten day duration of this project. I quickly discovered a critical part of the process was learning from and about the lives of the townspeople. If you look closely, you will see and hear details, real and metaphorical woven into the concept and visual presentation.
Amber and Jessy took me on a non-typical tour of the city, helping to collect discarded household items and furniture from lesser-known streets. Majority of what you see, from the recognizable thing that has been painted over to the broken-down, dissected furnishing you might not quite recognize, once belonged to a person living in Lake City.
Viewers are invited into the artwork, as if stepping into a painting. This presents a reality separate from ordinary life and traditional art viewing ripe with differing perspectives of the American South and rural America. Tension acts as a tool in the work, with an array of objects ranging in use, historical context, and class. These items teeter between playful and ominous, pointing to the space between scarcity and excess. This imagined place, made real, situated amongst histories, memories, and perceptions of reality.
Brink of Collapse II
A physical manifestation of the psychological and a marker of the connection between space, shelter, and self. Concealed within what was once a functioning vault, this piece highlights problematic yet prevalent practices/behaviors and teachings that encourage individuals to lock fear, emotion, and neuroses, "out of sight out of mind."
Viewers are confronted in a manner that cannot be ignored; to move through the space, they must remain conscious of their body and the structure simultaneously. Yet, when drawn to the inside, there is no entry. Narrow cracks, window-like gaps and small doorways offer only glimpses, unveiling a human figure lying inside. This stark reality contrasts flamboyant shades of pink that may have initially evoked a sense of curiosity. Visual tension and intentional ambiguity invites viewers to fill the space with projections from their own subconscious.
Unnamed Place in Solitude (Time)
For as long as I can remember, one of my biggest fears has been the thought of dying alone.
In March of 2020, my research took a sudden shift when my father was diagnosed with acute myeloma leukemia. Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19, I was unable to see him before he started chemotherapy just three days later. He was then placed in hospitalized isolation for nearly one hundred days. I cannot express the torture and despair that comes with knowing your loved one is living a nightmare. No matter how hard you or I try, hopefully, we will never know… It has been difficult for me to articulate the work that emerged as a result of his passing in October 2020, but I hope this context may give viewers insight.
Built inside what was once a staple of the Eastside Bayfront Neighborhood in Erie, Pennsylvania, (formerly "Scotty's Jazz & Cigar Bar"), this site has a history and a life prior to that of its current state on 123 German Street. An Unnamed Place in Solitude; Time draws a correlation between the life of the structure and that of the individual (body, mind, spirit). Books lie stacked around the perimeter of the sparsely furnished room piled at the feet of a sole armchair; each one, a symbol for the passing of time. Hours, weeks, days spent on words read or written, this period of time cannot be regained or omitted. These mental on-goings, solitary in nature, however, they highlight the universal truths of the human condition. There is a longing for escape as one enters the void.
Positive Perception in Peach Veneer
Upon first glance, Positive Perception in Peach Veneer appears happy and light-hearted; however, upon closer inspection, broken-down objects have been masked by the painted surface. This work acknowledges the façade of the mediated self that is further perpetuated by social media, thus, questioning a narrative that equates wealth and external gratification to happiness (an ongoing theme in Watkins’ work). The temporary nature of installation works such as this focus on the present moment while examining physical manifestations of the psyche. Watkins often blurs the lines between destruction and beautification imploring viewer investigation and self-inquiry to draw one’s own conclusions.
Hands Unseen
Hand’s Unseen is a conceptual installation and memorial to mill workers across the southeastern United States. Emerging from a process of ritual and routine, I made daily walks to the Olympia Cemetery for twenty days to observe and honor the lives of many mill-workers and their families' while scavenging for textiles in my daily life. Bed sheets, tablecloths, and curtains alike were drenched in blue, hand-dyed atop the stove, like a low-country boil.
The South Carolina heat whispered woes of women and children toiling at the face of a spinning loom, and I became interested in the antique construction. The central circular form constructed of carved foam is emblematic of a wheel that turns endlessly during long hours laboring in harsh conditions for little pay. Acknowledging the hands by which a future economy was built, plaster casted hands are suspended from the ceiling of the hundred year old guard house. Two stylized portraits depicting women and children, hang overlooking this site, a symbol of resilience and the past for current-day residents.