Graduating Senior Spotlight for the SMCM 2020 All-Student Show
Gillian Borkowski from the Class of 2020 won the Arts Alliance Patti Runco Award for Best in the 2020 All-Student Show for
“Rest/Pose #1,” 2019, Gouache, 18 x 24
Congrats Gillian, and all SMCM Alumni!!
In an interview conducted in April-May 2020 with Boyden Gallery’s Spring 2020 Professional Fellow, Daniel Mixson, Gillian said:
DM: In your artist’s statement, you said that, in this piece, you “negotiate between the actuality of my body and the nuanced perceptions I impress upon it.” What do you feel the difference between the actuality of your body and your own perceptions of it are?
GB: It’s not a secret that I’m invested in feminist philosophy and the idea that, for myself, I don’t know if I consider my body to be a female body, but as for society, it is a female body, and it impresses these standards of what it should look like, how it should perform, if it’s performing it accurately. Or if it’s doing what it should be doing within the space it’s allotted in society, and those are the things in society that you feel impressed upon yourself as a woman or as a person in a female coded body about how you should perform in that body and how it should look. I think that there are a lot of things that, when you’re looking at your own body, the mold of the standard that you have to fit into. You see things and you think, these fit, these don’t, and for me these can become obsessive points, and something you hyperfixate on.
DM: Your artistic statement, in and of itself, is extremely descriptive. Do you consider it to be an extension of the artistic presentation? What do you hope readers might understand about your work in conjunction with the artistic statement?
GB: It should be said that this work was from the midpoint progression of my SMP. And I’ve gotten to this point where I’ve realized that the writing I do about my work is really important to understanding the work itself. I’m an art history minor, and art history is something I’m super interested in, and writing about visual language and imagery is important to understand in itself. I do enjoy having people be able to read my artist statement alongside my work, because I feel it gives them a little more perspective, and I do think that I like, with this work, having that statement along with it. With the work I’m continuing to make that’s in the same line with that work, I’ve been adding text to it so that the reading and visual experiences are happening at the same time. I think that it is important to read along with it, especially because a lot of my work, and a lot of the visual language I use and appreciate are all inspired by artists who consider themselves feminist. I think that the visuals should stand on their own, but reading it alongside will only help the viewer make their connection to the piece.