Maria Tritico

Actualities, Lived

This body of work is a reflection on select experiences I have had working within institutions in the city of Chicago.  Playing off the way each piece interacts with the body as a way to include the wearer in an aspect of the initial experience through the wearers' senses.

(Un)Guarded, (Un)Seen

Gum Bichromate Prints

2015

Conversations in jail have their risks.  Inmates are often very cautious because they never know who might use some bit of information against them.  Participants in groups often create, write, and speak in metaphors giving just enough information without revealing the full details of their legal situation or the events of their lives.  This allows us to have full group discussions focusing on very real emotions without giving too much information that might place them in jeopardy.

This collection of prints (Un)Guarded, (Un)Seen represents the surface.  What you see when you look at the images straight on is different from what you see from an angle.  What are sometimes “surface” conversations are often loaded with meaning and information.

Discarded and Disregarded

This body of work sets out to create a parallel between the constricting effects of wearing fragile and cumbersome accessories and the environmentally constricting effects of planting nonnative invasive plants, trees and grasses in yards, parks and public areas.  By choosing nonnative plants there is not only a greater financial responsibility to maintain the plants but nonnative plants also require more nutrients from the soil then native plants.  Invasive plants inhibit the soil’s ability to support life in the future similar to the way the pieces in this body of work inhibits the wearers bodily movements

Fear and Fondness

Fear is a normal reaction to a physical or psychological threat that is an integral and adaptive aspect of development with the primary function of promoting survival.  But what happens when the fear is no longer about survival?   When fear transforms from that which is necessary to survive into a fear of abstract or non-life-threatening situations there is a hindrance on the quality of life.

This series deals directly with the embodiment of fear motivated by the stimulus and the reaction to the fear.  Through body adornment I am trying to achieve visceral reactions of feeling threatened or repulsed by over stimulating the senses.   

Using completely legitimate yet exotic and nonlife-threatening fears I am able to create formal fear-induced situations.  Each of the pieces not only embodies the fear and overestimates the senses but also hinders everyday activities, ranging from the use of sight, restriction of limbs and bodily movements or by the sheer weight of the object.  It is important that the wearer has a limited range of the restricted ability in order to tempt the wearer to work past the veil of insecurity the fear has over them.