Dana Hoey

http://www.petzel.com/exhibitions/2006-05-04_dana-hoey/


For this body of work, Hoey has combined original and appropriated images and arranged them into kaleidoscopic patterns, juxtaposing the nudes with more simple portraits. Initially inspired by Judith Butler to enact satirical, imitative performances of social patterns, Hoey quickly saw the limitations of such a practice. Noting that there is no way around the "tissue-thin reduction of the female form to sexual viability," Hoey departed from the main themes of her previous work and did away with the picture plane, pictorial narrative, and any semblance of photographic perfection. New participants, these champions of the first wave of feminism, entered the work and not only demolished, but restructured their "pornification." They left messes, carefully ordered into misaligned, dusty, and gluey flat patterns. All dirt and dust was then buried in the ultra-flat picture plane, and laminated over to complete the sealing and erasure of the hand. The result of this grotesque process is a large, vibrant collage that plays with geometric patterns and twisted social norms....