Gerri Spilka

Artist's Statement

We all travel through cities, inhabit communities and are influenced by their character—a combination of climate, geography, history, economies, the built and natural environment, and ultimately culture. However, this relationship is not one way. With a long view, one comes to understand that people have an interactive dynamic connection with place: we are shaped by the communities we inhabit while also simultaneously contributing to the creation of place, zeitgeist and character ourselves.

This phenomenon has been noted by many. An aspect, known as “habitus" was likely introduced by Aristotle. The Greeks defined “habitus" as a system of embodied dispositions, tendencies that organize the ways in which individuals perceive the social world around them and react to it. In more recent times, this notion has been rounded out by the influence of place in social identity. Introduced by environmental and social psychologists, “place identity” is a part of a person’s self-identity, and consists of knowledge and feelings developed through everyday experiences of physical spaces. The place identity of a person can inform their experiences, behaviors, and attitudes about other places. In a related vein, “place attachment” defines the ways in which people connect to various places, and the effects of the powerful bonds in identity development, place-making, perception, and practice. All three of these concepts help us to understand where and why people feel at home, as well as why displacement—forced or voluntary—can be so traumatic for individuals and groups.

In my daily life, place allows my memories,experiences to make sense in complex ways. My interaction with the urban landscapes of Philadelphia, Los Angeles, or NYC, intertwine my sense of place and the politics of space. Traveled rural landscapes of Appalachia, coastal zones, and midwestern farms, also figure into identity and the politics of place. In all these communities, I see how some place identities have been privileged in narratives while others hidden or denied. When all places and identities are uncovered and celebrated as part of the whole, a rich complex, authentic place exists for all to create experiences and memories.

As I think about place, city, community, identify, I believe that Jane Jacobs in “The Death and Life of great American Cities” perhaps captured my belief most succinctly: “Cities are for all people; and in fact, they are created by all people.”

The understanding of identity and place—the landform and geography, the character, the color, the tone, and the broad range of all peoples and their agency have been and remain common thread concerns for me, and present in all my life’s work. Most notably, I am fascinated by their inevitable and often ambiguous interactions.

Today as an artist, I explore place and identity through the representation of landform and people. At times they are ambiguously the same/shifting forms; at times each stands alone as either land or people on fire, in trouble, asking, marching, or feigning indifference. My figures also stand together in groups, conversing, sharing, playing music, or rebuffing the other.

My work is consistently large scale, bold, yet simple and direct with strong, large figures interacting often with an equally strong ground. I love color and use it confidently, powerfully, and often playfully. Fabric-pieced and dye painting constructions are my medium of choice. Clothed and housed in fabric is common to us all. Scale is important, as the consistently large pieces allow the viewer to be in or next to the work, provoking a visceral curiosity about who this may be? where? as well as realizations that you are somewhat like me.