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Exhibitions
She Fell From Normalcy
November 18 – December 14, 2017
RUBBER FACTORY is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Christie Neptune. Neptune creates counter-narratives which examine pedagogies of resistance, black subjectivity and the nuances of identity construction amongst marginalized female bodies of color.
She Fell From Normalcy is the second installment of Christie Neptune’s multi-media series, Eye Of The Storm. It is a body of work that examines how constructs of race, gender, and class limit the personal experience. Working across photography and video, Neptune critiques hegemonic systems of whiteness that shape one’s definition of “self”, and in She Fell From Normalcy, places particular emphasis on the emotional and mental health of people of color. As subject, Neptune employs two females trapped in a sterile, white environment in which they are controlled by an unseen presence; it is only after a cataclysmic break in the system that the females are granted clarity and self-recognition. In this afro-surrealist world, their bodies are reduced to mechanical, functional flesh, unable to break away from the gaze of the camera. Within this matrix-like construct, Neptune references an absent mythical norm defined by the Black feminist, Audre Lorde as ““white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure.” Instead, the bodies become a site around blackness, femininity, and psychological spaces. In the video piece ““Ms. _______ (Interior)”, Neptune explores black subjectivity as a platform for quiet resistance. Through convoluted portraits of anonymous black women poised in fluorescent illumination and wiring, she warps time and place, transporting viewers from the real world into a contemplative space that grants fleeting access into her subject’s inaccessible psychological life.
She Fell From Normalcy is the second installment of Christie Neptune’s multi-media series, Eye Of The Storm. It is a body of work that examines how constructs of race, gender, and class limit the personal experience. Working across photography and video, Neptune critiques hegemonic systems of whiteness that shape one’s definition of “self”, and in She Fell From Normalcy, places particular emphasis on the emotional and mental health of people of color. As subject, Neptune employs two females trapped in a sterile, white environment in which they are controlled by an unseen presence; it is only after a cataclysmic break in the system that the females are granted clarity and self-recognition. In this afro-surrealist world, their bodies are reduced to mechanical, functional flesh, unable to break away from the gaze of the camera. Within this matrix-like construct, Neptune references an absent mythical norm defined by the Black feminist, Audre Lorde as ““white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure.” Instead, the bodies become a site around blackness, femininity, and psychological spaces. In the video piece ““Ms. _______ (Interior)”, Neptune explores black subjectivity as a platform for quiet resistance. Through convoluted portraits of anonymous black women poised in fluorescent illumination and wiring, she warps time and place, transporting viewers from the real world into a contemplative space that grants fleeting access into her subject’s inaccessible psychological life.
Press
June 2019, The Art Newspaper
May 2018, Hyperallergic
March 2018, Hyperallergic
February 2018, Artforum
February 2017, The Washington Post
July 2016, Creators
July 2016, Afropunk
February 2016, Juxtapoz
June 2019, The Art Newspaper
May 2018, Hyperallergic
March 2018, Hyperallergic
February 2018, Artforum
February 2017, The Washington Post
July 2016, Creators
July 2016, Afropunk
February 2016, Juxtapoz