Whitney J Humphreys

Whitney J. Humphreys
San Francisco, California, USA

STATEMENT

In central focus within my work are the speculative visions of the future that are built out of the ideals of our cultural past. Connecting conversations about machines with the politics of gender, my practice addresses how oppressive structures are built into the tools we rely on, where bodies are rendered machine-like through service labor in dangerous post-human fantasies.

Through a collage of metal sculpture, fiber art, and printing traditions, my work engages with historically gendered forms of engineering and modes of mechanical reproduction. I present printed media, garment construction, and information technologies as linked contributors in the production of cultural identities, while employing found, manipulated, and printed imagery to generate them. In these ways, the work’s content and processes address the ways that idealized gender performances are produced and disseminated across art historical tradition and popular media, often deployed as a tool for bodily control.

BIO

Whitney Humphreys is a San Francisco Bay Area artist and teacher. Her research-based, multi-media practice fuses collage with traditional printmaking, fiber art, and installation in works that address how visual culture and information technologies influence the production of gender identity. She graduated from San Francisco Art Institute’s Dual Degree program, receiving an MA and MFA, where she earned awards in Printmaking, Metal Sculpture, and Thesis Writing achievements. She is currently a Resident Tattoo Artist at Black Serum in San Francisco and leads courses in printmaking and design at Bay Area community colleges. She has taught at schools including the University of California Santa Cruz, San Francisco City College, and Berkeley City College. She has exhibited throughout the Bay Area and across the U.S.

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