Denise Marika’s new video piece, “Axis” is at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham. In “Axis” the nude figure is a “stand in” for the viewer’s own exposed self. The artist’s huddled body rotates on facing walls and rotate like the hands of a clock on the left and right walls while another projected video on the third wall contains a thin 30-foot long band of video. While experiencing the three-video projections the layered sounds of water lapping plays against screeching fingernails on a chalkboard.
Marika started her career as a stone carver and still thinks of herself as a sculptor. Since graduate school at UCLA she has been working with video. She enjoys the physical challenges of working sculpturally and compares these challenges to rock climbing another one of her passions and often throws herself onto her work physically. In “Recoil” she was stoned with “small replicas of herself”, which deals with the bare essence of what it is to be human
Marika enjoys putting herself in difficult spots, both in her work and life, feeling that we learn the most from those moments.
“Axis” is on display through January 28th. …