Senior Art Thesis

Claire Callahan

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Last summer, fairy art camp took an unexpected turn. Unable to focus on decorating magic wands and building woodland houses, my 5-year-old students scampered upstairs to the dress-up corner to slip on heels, pearl neck-laces, and the laciest dresses they could find. Aware of a sexual energy in the air, their playful touching escalated into frantic wrestling matches. I spent the months that followed reflecting on the loss of my own childhood, and asking why this purity is now stripped away so prematurely.

Transparent layers of blood-like paint upon children’s bed sheets reference this early loss of the child’s blissful igno-rance. I ask you to explore the paintings before you and consider when your sheets became bloodied. Did you bloody the sheets of your children, or will you? Will you preserve their blissful ignorance, and should you?

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