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a r t i s t s t a t e m e n t
Self-indulgence, exaggeration and excess are my specialty. Grandiose statements, a healthy sense of narcissism plus a fascination with risk and contradiction, allow me a certain level of control and of course, I mustn't forget, an obsession with orchestrating instances of destruction sums me up quite nicely. However, this has meant that to many I am a constant source of concern and irritation. To "fix" this affliction, my mother told me that I should sit down and write a list of all my faults, so that I might realise and then come to terms with all of my issues (I think she got this from one of the numerous 12-step programs that she has been enrolled in over the years). She said that this would encourage me to "change my ways" and would persuade me to 'improve myself' such that I might stop creating situations of "self sabotage" and start striving for a "more 'pure' and 'honest' state of existence". So to keep her happy I did. But all that did for me was to encourage more of the same, but hey, I admit that my sense of reality is narcissistically warped.
Kirsten Hudson 2009
'And everything nice...'
Media Performance Still
w o r k s m e n u
falter 2006
and everything nice... 2009
lump 2006
feint 2009
sweetness and light...2006
Click on each image to go to preview galleries of works by Kirsten Hudson shown in the dOFA09 exhibition, The John Curtin Gallery 2009
64.7 kg sugar cube
74kg sugar in acrylic case dimensions variable and sticky! Installation detail 'Skin to Skin' exhibition, Fremantle Arts Center 2008
Digital Still Lightbox Installation. Media Performance performed and devised by Kirsten Hudson. Video Sarah Jane Pell.
Lightboxed media performance stills Performed and devised by Kirsten Hudson. Video by Sarah Jane Pell. Premier Installation 'Bones of the Skin' Breadbox Gallery Perth 2006
...In the final few stills, as she is becoming completely consumed by the sweet coating; the artist looks to the camera and smiles. By this final poised gesture, Hudson presents herself as the queen bee: nearly completely coated and caked in sugariness: gazing back at the viewer to gloat with accusation at the audience for her narcissistic becoming.
Pell, SJ, 2006 Sugar and Spice
BST Body Space Technology Journal,
Vol. 6, Ch.04. Article 1
lump 2006/2009
sweetness and light 2006
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By exposing and overdoing the stereotypes of femininity and the female body within Surrealist and modern discourses, the works created explore the possibility of a strategy of Baroque Gothicity that engages in an aesthetic of exaggeration and excess to violate and ruin discursive norms surrounding female subjectivity and the female body.
Hudson, K ., (2009)
Artificial Sweetness p.16
...and everything nice 2009
So, following both Dickinson
and Irigaray,
I offer this proposition:
This is what you want; but what you'll get is so much more than you bargained for.
Artificial Sweetness p.33
p u r e a n d a p p l i e d
Kirsten Hudson is a founding partner of Tangent Fashion Management (2006-), Creative Director of little girl INTERNATIONALTM (2000-05) producers of large-scale multiarts events, and project coordinator at DESIGNedge, the WA Fashion Incubator. She lectured in fashion, design and contemporary art at Curtin University of Technology 2001-07.
While artist-in-residence at SymbioticA - Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, University of Western Australia Kirsten Hudson commenced mini flesh works 2006 -07 attempting to use cells biopsied from her body and breastmilk, her infantÂ’s umbilical cord blood, umbilical cord as well as collagen taken from the placenta. Her post doctoral research interests converge towards the realisation of designer skinsTM.
Kirsten Hudson's work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, conferences e.g. CSAA Body Modification, Making an Appearance,
The Space Between Conference, Fashion-in-Fiction and UNAUSTRALIAN. She submitted a Doctor of Philosophy (Art) to Curtin University of Technology 2009.
Parasitica Ornamentus
Kirsten Hudson 2004
Experiement
k i r s t e n h u d s o n
Western Australian artist Kirsten Hudson is interested in issues surrounding the aesthetical, ethical, political and legal status of bodies and bodily matter as well as conflicts of interest and inconsistencies surrounding current bio-art practices and body image-based medical/fashion interventions and modifications. She engages with the repulsion and seduction - as well as the legal and ethical implications - of using the human body (or parts thereof) for artistic research purposes.
The resultant "sticky and tricky" hybrid art and media performances that Hudson produces have been exhibited at the Perth International Festival, Breadbox Gallery, The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Gallery Goddard de Fiddes, Fremantle Art Centre, The Moores Building and Craftwest. Highlights include: Skin to Skin 2008 and Bones of the Skin 2005.
Artifical Sweetness p.3
HELLO. MY NAME IS KIRSTEN HUDSON AND I AM A DISTOPIAN JUNKIE. I PAY GOOD MONEY TO GET HIGH ON THE AESTHETIC OF DESTRUCTION.
a r t i s t b o o k
Artificial Sweetness was published on the occassion of Kirsten Hudson's Doctor of Philosophy (Arts) exhibition dOFa09 at The John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University of Technology, 1 - 31 May 2009.
Artifical Sweetness
limited edition of 100 artist books -
42pg on performance praxis/theory -
each with unique hand signatures -
in plush white valvet pouch -
collectable sugar crystal stick pin -
Copies can be purchased from Artistry, the retail outlet at the John Curtin Gallery
for $AUD25 or online $AUD25 plus p+h
Buy Now
'Falter...'
Kirsten Hudson 2005
Artificial Sweetness
Dr.Kirsten Hudson
Western Australian artist Kirsten Hudson is interested in issues surrounding the aesthetical, ethical, political and legal status of bodies and bodily matter as well as conflicts of interest and inconsistencies surrounding current bio-art practices and body image-based medical/fashion interventions and modifications. She engages with the repulsion and seduction - as well as the legal and ethical implications - of using the human body (or parts thereof) for artistic research purposes...
Artificial Sweetness includes extracts from a limited edition artist book published in association with
Kirsten Hudson's Doctor of Philosophy (Arts) exhibition dOFa09 at The John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University of Technology, 1 - 31 May 2009.
kirsten [at] artificalsweetness [dot] com
