Miranda Fortenberry

Miranda Fortenberry
LaGrange, Georgia, USA

STATEMENT

My work explores the body as an object existing in a world of consumer culture. Commodity, duality and sexuality are major themes, often questioning the repercussions of a capitalist society on the feminine form.

Collage is my main tool of inspiration, allowing me to create intuitive compositions that echo the mundane absurdity of an obsession with the materialistic. These forms are grim featureless blobs abstracted into confinement and segmentation with object and body transforming into something that is indistinguishable from human and item. My work is a commentary of a quest for perfection. The Everyday Jo has become integrated into a society which treats body as immaterial material, body as a reflection of item.

I draw upon images of waste in multiplicity. Taking jumbled pieces of plastic throw-aways as a physical representation of an internal dialog of self. Dysmorphia, on a personal level, often comes up within these works allowing me to highlight specific parts of my body as isolated items. These segmented forms become a fixation on imperfection; Stomach, leg, and arm, problems not attached to the whole. On a broader scale, personal stories become a reflection of a more quantitative societal “problem area”. If the contemporary world has detached from the body to commodify it, is there a true, autonomous identity separate from the aesthetic reflections of society?

BIO

Originally from Phenix City, Alabama, Miranda Fortenberry currently lives in LaGrange, Georgia. She obtained her BFA in 2018 and is currently seeking her MFA. The work she produces deals with multimedia collage including oil paint, ink drawing, and printed media. Miranda has exhibited in the online Peach Belt Conference. She’s participated in several juried exhibitions and local shows within Columbus, Georgia, as well as a student organized pop-up entitled “Into the Rabbit Hole”. Her prints have also been chosen for a group exhibition in the Fulcrum Gallery, and her work was published in The Arden. She has 4 years of experience in show installation and curation under an assisting gallery coordinator position with Columbus State University and was an organizer for the 2022 All State Art Symposium. Recently her work was exhibited in the Cochran Gallery in LaGrange, Georgia.

ARTIST CONTACT

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