Artist Statement
“Heavy Handed is a show that has been years in the making. There are so many influences for this collection that when the time came to pen a work statement, it became difficult to pinpoint one single source of inspiration. We live in a time during which mass amounts of shared information can reach us with record speed. Because of this, an ongoing set of cultural and individual events continued to inform this work as it was being made, often shifting the direction in which I originally thought I was headed.
Once I began creating these pieces, the work took on its own life. It flowed in ways that at times built distance between my own experience and the message the work seemed to communicate. The more I wrestled with the subject matter, the more important it became for me to find a way to see myself reflected in the body of work.
In order to insert personal experience into a body of work, a person must to rely on a subset of memories and mementos. When I began to learn how and why my memory has failed me, I started to search outside of my own recollections to narrow the gaps.
What resulted is a collection of art and artifacts that explore connections between what we are comfortable addressing and sharing publicly, and what society teaches us should remain behind closed doors.” —Courtney Buckland
