Barbara Yontz

Using a variety of media I experiment with ways to resist thinking in binary terms (mind/body, inside/outside, beauty /abject, organic/inorganic, self/other, and virtuality/materiality). I am particularly interested in what penetrates, problematizes and otherwise reconfigures how we come to think about the concept of boundaries as it mediates our notions of personal and social relations. Looking for ways through which we separate from and connect with each other--skin, voice, touch, action, and language are examined. I choose materials carefully, hog gut, iron, sound, the body, all have meaning as matter, metaphor and for what they do. My working processes, (sewing, welding, acting) and the presentation methods (time-based, installation, ambient sound, headphones), all are chosen for how they mean.

The pieces grow out of my own idiosyncratic musings: the subversive and complex possibilities associated with love, the stunted desire and pathos of an indiscernible encounter, or the inevitably futile gesture of attempting to hide the self. I am interested in the material and psychological consequences of relationships, the paradox of the encounter between two. Because ultimately, it is in the relationship, with all its messiness and tenderness, where meaning is enacted. And it is within relationship where boundaries can be softened.

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