Bernadette Floresca

Bernadette Floresca
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

STATEMENT

Themes of decolonizing spaces and vocabulary carry over into all of my artistic work (sculpture, ceramics, installation, and collage), but with a visual and metaphoric emphasis on exploring the definition behind the term abject and consequences this description has on subjects in American society. My creations reference the human condition and the body dysmorphia our experiences and relationships in a post-colonial world create. Biomorphic and anthropomorphic abstractions often emerge visually commenting on our human relationship with pop culture, commercial products, the natural environment, and what it means to be an animal. My collage process involves the upcycling and recycling of vintage papers discarded from an archive, and often embraces textures of wear and tear, deterioration, and residue of human consumption.

BIO

Bernadette Floresca is a mixed media artist and Archivist for Collection Management and Digital Preservation at Newcomb Archives and Vorhoff Collection at Newcomb Institute. Bernadette holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Sculpture, a Master of Library and Information Science, and a Graduate Certificate in Archives and Special Collections from the University of Southern Mississippi, as well as a Master of Liberal Arts (with an interdisciplinary focus on gender, sexuality, and art) from Tulane
University’s School of Professional Advancement. Research interests include decolonizing the archives, improving the use of inclusive and reparative descriptions in special collections, utilizing the archives as a site for activism, and feminist reflections of the abject in American pop culture. Bernadette strives to emphasize the importance of creative community, art, and DIY activism as crucial components of feminist culture.

ARTIST CONTACT

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