Reading the statement for my 2020 Flesh Forming film

Описание: In this video I discuss the creation of my digital portfolio on my "santarpia.studio.inc" instagram page, the creation of my first art film, and reading the statement that expresses all that the video attempts to tackle.

[ THE FLESH FORMING VIDEO ] 2020

At the time of this video’s creation, I was engulfed in my abstract painting practice. I was using large plastic tarp to mark my ink paintings with texture, creating monotype prints on layered alcohol ink images that looked awfully visceral. The artworks became the “Scope” series. Luminous visuals of imagined interiors of the body. Bloody, muscular, coagulated, grotesque yet beautiful, all in one image. I was driven to create these ink paintings because of my experience with spinal fusion surgery and chronic pain. The experience of being cut open, screws and plates drilled and fixed to my body, spending countless hours in doctors offices getting poked prodded and scanned. This visceral experience is translated into the paintings. 

As an artist I feel compelled to tackle the same ideas through multiple mediums (i.e. the “Bound” series of cyanotypes, this video piece, and the Scope paintings, and later, the Trophy Body Series). I considered how film--4D media--could articulate the experiences I’ve undergone. How can I express the imagined interior, the pain, the recovery process, the mystery and invisibility of the body? To do so, I filmed and recorded in 3 settings and used one source of found images. The settings were a butcher shop and meat locker, my dad’s weight room in his garage, and in the studio where I was creating those visceral ink paintings. The found imagery was a compiled video of the MRI of my spine after surgery. I also used audio recordings of a ventilation unit/fan, my breath during exercise, and weights clanging in the weight room.

I exhibited this video piece in a film festival in France in 2021:
“no--body's room” at The Room Projects, Paris, France.

[ original statement ]
This film uses synchronized audio and video to bridge contexts of exercise, viscerality, the body as specimen, and repetition. Audio recordings of breaths performed during exercise paired with reverberating video of my painting practice capture an unfamiliar visualization of live flesh. This pairing is  followed by staggered scenes of meat packing, painting, body scanning, and exercising. The guttural audio and violent images imbue the film with a discomforting, ominous intimacy, reflective of my bodily experience.