Single channel wall or window projection
Variable size

Enshrined in the façade of a building, a private gesture of prayer is made public.  Hands clasped together, the disembodied arms remain still for a long time then smash repeatedly against the window/wall. Uncertain of the identity of the supplicant we insert ourselves, the gesture of the arms echoing our own memories of prayer and longing. The image shifts from static icon to violent action.

Video projection,Steel, fur and video
47″ x 63 “x 3” (I)
47″ x 53 1/2″ x3″ (II)
47 x 54 1/4″ x3″ (III)

Two sheets of steel are mounted on each of the three fur-covered panels. A woman seen from the top of her head is bisected by a reveal of fur between the steel plates. The body position is different in each piece; face down, face up, she lifts and lowers her head repeatedly, laboring against its weight. As exhaustion sets in, the gesture becomes a personal struggle.  On one panel, she holds her head up by the hair and upon release her head strikes the surface beneath.

Cut off at the collarbone, a woman’s body is projected at the junction of the wall and ceiling.  Her legs dangle, swinging child-like back and forth. Without arms, the details of the torso take on their own persona and humor.

A woman, crouched on her haunches, throws hunks of red clay on the wall. She pushes and pounds at the wet clay with her hands and fingers, working to cover as much of the wall as she can reach.  Just as the clay surface nears completion, she frantically begins to rip it down. As the wall is uncovered, remnants of the red clay mark the re-exposed areas of the wall and mark her body. For almost an hour, she builds and destroys her work, the sound of pounding hands and falling clay punctuated by her labored breathing.

Two 48” x 42” slate blackboards face each other across the space, drawn on each is a faint chalk torso. The projected image of a woman crouched in a tidal pool of seaweed matches the drawing until the figure shifts orientation, coming full circle in 20-degree increments. With each shift of position, we hear the painful sound of fingernails on a blackboard and the continuous soft sound of seaweed in water.  Extending between the two blackboards is a 24′ x 1′ projected band of seaweed.  Charcoal lines drawn directly onto the wall fleetingly match the projection and lock into the shifting video image.

Two 48″ x 42″ slate blackboards face each other across the space. Drawn on each is a faint chalk torso. The projected image of a woman crouched in a tidal pool of seaweed matches the drawing until the figure shifts orientation, coming full circle in 20-degree increments. With each shift of position we hear the painful sound of finger nails on a blackboard and the continuous soft sound of seaweed in water. In the center of the wall is a 24′ x 1′ projected band of seaweed. The projection is overlaid by a charcoal drawing which fleetingly matches the shifting video image line for line.

The center window of the building is transformed into a crystal blue surface of water disturbed only by the slow shifting movement of seaweed. The enlarged close-up of the water appears as liquid glass locked into the window frame. From the exterior speakers we hear the sound of the water as it rolls the seaweed back and forth with the rhythm of the tide.

A public art project for the Southwest Corridor Park, Boston
By Corey Tatarczuk and Denise Marika
A series of rotating photo images projected at night onto 8 ft. square concrete buttresses along the Southwest Corridor Park. The images capture the gestures and energy of youth, defying containment and celebrating their identity. The concrete buttresses function as a physical and metaphorical framework, within which each person struggles to define themselves.

An installation consisting of two plexiglass tubes mounted on the wall. Inside each a twelve inch female nude crouches, buried in the limestone. As the tubes are rolled, the figure becomes increasingly revealed or covered by the limestone “terra.”

A four-foot diameter metal disc contains the projected image of a woman, crouching with her hands over her head. She tries to protect herself as objects are pelted at her, hitting her body and shattering on impact. The objects are small figures, exact 3D output portraits of her body in that moment and stance. As the fragmented figures fill the metal disc, her breathing quiets and she remains crouched, her back marked and red.

Packed layers of felt are held tightly by two metal frames, which rise beyond the crushed material. Absorbed into the depths of the fabric, a woman carries a man in her arms. The classical folds of pink felt disfigure the bodies. She walks, loaded down by his dead weight, her breathing labored as she struggles to hold him in her arms.

Still images from the “More Weight” video of a woman carrying a man in her arms are mounted as a triptych on hinged aluminum panels.

Still images from the “Face Me” video cover six 19″ high sanding belts, lined with felt, which rest on three steel shelves.

Men and women lie naked, curled or stretched out beneath the benches that surround the inner garden courtyard. In a fresco-like blend of texture and image, each figure is projected onto the gritty concrete and sheltered under the heavy slab seat.

Two crosswalk signals at a busy intersection project images of a mother and child, the mother alternately restraining, struggling with and embracing the child.

An antique museum display case, its lid cranked up with its toothed mechanism exposed, contains the floating image of mother and daughter. Seen from the feet, the lifeless bodies lie in quiet embrace, a single bright light projecting a second image beneath them.

A brushed aluminum beam spans from wall to wall, blocking full entry to the red room. At chest height, the beam captures the image of a woman’s neck, shoulders and chest. A man hugs her from behind, holding her tightly and restricting her movements. She alternately struggles with and accepts his physically controlling embrace.

Seen on adjacent marble columns, a woman crawls back and forth on her knees, trapped and prowling.

The raw structural power of an industrial steel I-beam extends from floor to ceiling. Projected on the inner web of the beam, as seen through the slit of a barely open door, a man and a woman engage in a silent physical struggle.  Locked in combat, they battle back and forth across the narrow aperture.

Life-size figures of a man and a woman are caught in moments of domestic violence.

Metal bars are suspended from the ceiling at various heights. From one of the bars hangs a raw animal hide on which is projected the stretched upper torso and arms of a figure jumping up and staining to hold on. Losing grip of the bar, the figure falls down and out of sight. With each attempt and fall we hear her feet hit the ground hard.

Two tall swings face each other twelve feet apart. Latex stretched taut between the rigid aluminum poles of each swing define a narrow 22inch area within which a projected figure, Cycladic in shape, slowly crouches and rises. Each pendulum-like structure hangs from the ceiling to within six inches of the floor. The viewer, sitting in either swing, can layer their motion on that of the rising and falling figure, making physical contact between object, body and image.

A conveyor runs 18 feet along the floor from the entrance to the back of the gallery. As you pass your hand along the conveyor, the red rollers and the glass tubes cradled between them are set in motion, projecting photographic images from roller to roller. The combined images reveal a series of interactions between mother and child, brother and sister, at play, in conflict and comforting each other.

The back room of the gallery is empty. A heavy sliding door panel along the wall reveals an inner door sealed by a membrane of latex on which is the projected image of a woman, caught dressing.

A 13′ long aluminum track holds five curved metate forms on rollers. On each 24″ x 24″ curved pink gum surface a glass tube can be gently rolled by hand to reveal body parts and figures wrapped and contained by the glass. Light passing through the photographic images as they are rolled back and forth on the pink gum surface reveals new multiple images in motion.

Aluminum. wood, red rubber, black and white video monitors
12′ x 8’6” x 5′

Standing between the red rubber plates of a giant vice, the viewer is confronted by opposing video monitors. In one, a man’s hand forcibly turns the face of a woman towards you, in the other a woman’s hand controls the face of a child. To see both images the viewer is similarly forced to turn from one to the other. As the private disciplinary action is made public, the tension and resentment becomes palpable.

An 8’x 8’ x 20’ long plywood box with 2”x 4” rib framing, lies on the floor, open at one end.  Entering, you approach a 64”x 13”x 40” deep copper drawer set into the far wall. At the back of the open-faced drawer a life size nude figure is laid out across three monitors, separated by bands of copper. Handles allow you to pull the drawer into the room or push it back into the wall. The figure lies on her side, compressed and reflected within the confines of the drawer. She fleetingly meets the viewer’s eyes then turns away. Performed in the drawer, the rapid rotation of her body has etched footprints in the copper.

A box is trapped within the video hub of the wheel. You hear it hit the steel again and again. On the floor its motorized cohorts do the same but their absurd scuttling about is amusing rather then desperate

Copper, fiberglass & video

An 8′ tall copper clad shield leans against the wall, protruding from its center is a pregnant belly. A second draped pregnant form reclines on the floor. while a third is seated as if one with the chair. Through the havel of each is a close up image of a pregnant belly, rising and falling with each audible breath.

A woman paces back and forth between two mirrored medicine cabinets set at waist height, 5’ apart on the wall. Alcoves of beeswax diffuse her image and the sound of her footsteps punctuates and defines the movement and tension of the sustained 3 hour performance. When closed, the one-way mirror reflects the viewer’s own image superimposed on that of the pacing figure.

3 rubber coated aluminum hammocks, metal springs & weights, video
4′ x 4′ x 2′
video monitors 9”,13”,15”,17” diagonal each

Black hammocks stretch down from the ceiling on metal springs, cradling old televisions. Each TV frames a portion of a single body in motion, the arms and shoulders, the torso and hips, the legs and feet. The body parts move in unison, while the physical separation between hammocks creates tension between the parts and the whole. Weighted down, the taught springs make the cradled woman subject to the slightest movement in the space.

Wood rocking chair, video monitor
3′ x 2′ x 3′

A monitor sits rocking in the chair. The video playing documents in close up the face of a woman being repeatedly slapped in the face by a male hand. Her defiance is visible in her expression as she continues to rock towards the screen. As is repeatedly struck, the red imprint of his hand marks her cheek.

A 6’ white steel box on casters is topped with a slab of white marble. Three oval basins cut into the marble are sealed by translucent amber wax diffusing the monitor images beneath. Through the wax we observe a woman bathing. Lying fully immersed in the water she washes herself, her body reaching across and shifting from basin to basin.

A video monitor surrounded by discarded clothes packs one end of a long aluminum cylinder. The video documents the now motionless shaft in action, the rammer smashing up against the glass as if to break through.