STATEMENT
My work always directly relates to my life experience. The soft ground prints were created in response to my husband’s recurrent cancer, stem cell transplant, and the changing healing process that followed. The bodies of my husband, my son and myself were pressed directly into soft ground to make the images onto the plates.
Our first “protection” is our skin and second is the immune system. The human body’s daily resistance, yet exposed vulnerability fascinates me.
The body prints explore the connection of husband, wife and child. The rice paper symbolizes the fragility of our own skin, and the hardware symbolizes the strength of our foundation. The idea of having the images “repeat” in prints follows the idea that every experience connects to the prior one. Many come back around and repeat again..
I am currently working on a series focusing on the depiction of women’s sexuality titled “Ecstasy”. For the series I created life size monoprint self-portraits from photographs taken by my partner during sexual moments. The realistic scale causes the viewer to become part of the actual space. In some there is an awareness of the gaze of the viewer, in others, I am unaware – the viewer is a voyeur, and my private moment is no longer.
The expressions range from vulnerable and gazing to orgasmic and powerful. I am depicting the real space between love and lust, beauty and reality, without editing any unflattering angles. They are showing a period of time during an intensely intimate moment.
Questions I am asking with this work include:
Is there a place in both our lives and psyche that we are NOT being observed?
Can I paint the female sexual experience and the female body in a non-apologetic, strong, brave way with out it becoming objectified?
Especially in these times of active repression of female sexuality, can this be a way to inform, educate and empower both artists and viewers?
BIOGRAPHY
Alexandra Rutsch Brock is an artist, independent curator and educator.
Born in Westchester, NY, she received her BFA in Fine Art & Art Education K-12 from the School of Visual Arts, NY and her MS in Studio Art from the College of New Rochelle, NY.
She has been teaching at New Rochelle High School since 1991, where she started the annual Visiting Artists Program with Scott Seaboldt in 1993. Recent artists have included Alyse Rosner and Melissa Meyer (2020), Susan Luss (2019), Katherine Bradford (2018), Mario Moore (2017).
She has exhibited nationally, and curated in smaller venues around NY including Studio 12N, NYC; MirandaArtsProjectSpace, Portchester, NY and the Pelham Art Center, NY. Her most recent curation “In Accordion Time” inspired by the pandemic was at the Ursa Gallery in Bridgeport, CT from November 2020 – February 2021.