Abby
W.Day
︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎
No Man’s Land
Red Tennis Court Clay, 4x6‘ on wood panel.
Green Tennis Court Clay, 4x6 on wood panel.
This work is very close to my heart, I consider it a self-portrait. I’ve played tennis since I was 3 years old.
There is an area of the tennis court called “No Man’s Land”. An undefined place or state.
The term "no man's land" serves as a poignant metaphor for the uncertain and often uncomfortable phases of life where we find ourselves suspended between past certainties and future possibilities. In these liminal spaces, we may feel a sense of isolation or confusion, akin to wandering in a territory that people are questioned when in - a space not for any human. Just as "no man's land" in a tennis court represents the dangers and risks of stepping into the unknown, our experiences in these transitional moments can evoke feelings of vulnerability. In a space called to immediatley move forward or backward, we could question how we navigate life's complexities.
She Copied Me
A video performance created at Sim Residency in Iceland
Performance,Camcorder footage, 2 Paintings
An exhibition took place in Reykjavik at Sim Residency in 2021.
My sister and I hiked through Eldfell, we moved until we found a non-descriptive area to paint a landscape for each other on a piece of glass. The exercise was to paint one another into the landscape utilizing the same method. We wanted to show the differences between us. Even after we verbalized a methodology, we wielded different results.
As your body moves through a landscape that you trace, you may realize your perception always changes. As I tried and tried again to paint my sister, she moved within the landscape, holding a camera, and as a result instead of drawing one of her, I drew multiples of her. This could show us that a human being can not grasp a landscape within a painting or reproduction, or even comprehend a body in totality by drawing a linear landscape, or taking a photograph simultaneously.
“Identity and resemblance would then be no more than inevitable illusions.”
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
https://vimeo.com/959138619
Mapping Entropy
An exhibition took place in Iceland at Korpúlfsstaðir in 2021.
Utilizing a rope, I tracked my location and trail while walking in Iceland. We display life’s movement, and inherently it's chaos, unpredictability, and entropy by existing. Through carrying a rope and repeating these patterns of mapping, we also display the behaviors that we submit to illogically and the randomness of our day and night. After using a straight line of rope, we may come across that the rope becomes entangled, circular, patterned, and goes nowhere, yet is a paradox as it becomes part of a greater landscape. This could show us that our movements have ramifications, are disorderly even if perceived as organized, and we should not forget the intangible.
This project resulted in altered landscapes and documentation.
Walk With Me
An exhibition took place at Dada Post, Berlin, Germany August- October 23 2020
During the times of political unrest and coronavirus, Lara Orawski and I tied ourselves together and took a photograph in the photoautomat, we then walked across from East Berlin to West Berlin. After walking together, we documented the remaining rope prints after we untied ourselves in a different photoautomat. We had to balance off of each other, and fit through doors for the time we walked around the city. The rope I used to tie us together was knotted very tightly, to show an intense and secure bond to re-present making something we were experiencing that’s non-physical, and bringing it into the physical plane. I like to think of the photoautomat’s in Berlin as points which document an individuals map, while also documenting a group of people during its existence.
These photographs were installed at the end of an artist residency at Dada Post Berlin, the photographs are 146cm x 120cm.
