March 31 – April 7
Reception: Friday, April 4, 5-7pm
Location: Art Lofts Gallery, 111 N Frances St, Madison, WI
Ascendance is an emotional and psychological journey of confronting and finding healing in the aftermath of sexual assault trauma. As a survivor, I experienced an enforced silencing, and a sense of oppression imposed on me by societal, familial, and cultural norms. I was told to forget so that I could live. But how could I forget what continues to live within me? No matter how hard I tried, the memory of the assault would come back unexpectedly, crashing into my daily existence like a wave hitting the shore: sudden, forceful, and inescapable.
This lack of support led to a loss of agency, not only over my body but also over my emotions, leaving me feeling fractured from myself, my body and my memories. Moving away from those oppressive environments made me confront my pain. I realized the waves of memory do not exist to drown me; they insist on recognition, forcing me to reckon with what was buried.
In this confrontation, there was a pain that burned me and left scars on my soul. Yet, these scars burnished me, making me stronger and more resilient. As the central metaphor in this work, water and glass represent this duality of destruction and renewal. While memory pulls me under, life carries me forward. Submerged in water my body exists in this liminal space, neither entirely lost nor entirely free, but transforming.
Through this work, I use self-portraits to depict the process of turning the crisis of self-identity into self-acceptance. I reclaim my visibility by embracing my vulnerability. I share my story not as an act of weakness but as an act of empowerment. My nude self-portraits serve as a protest against the invisibility imposed on my body and emotions, asserting that my experience is mine to inhabit and express. I learned to exist as both strong and fragile, like water and glass, learning to coexist with my trauma and transforming it into something that no longer holds power over me.
The UW-Madison Art MFA Qualifier Exhibition season continues with Baran Ataei’s exhibit. The qualifier solo exhibitions are presented by the graduate students during their fourth semester as the evaluation review of their creative work to qualify for advancement in the MFA program. Come view the work and research by our newest cohort of developing artists!