MIKA REVELL
Foreign Currency 2011 - 2014
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This series or style, rather of painting has continued throughout the majority of my life and behaves as more of a narrative about personal growth and my personal questions. These images address the manner in which identities are constructed socially and influenced largely by culture, environment, race and gender. Many images depict women in positions of indecision; half evolved, half dissolved and in transit. More specifically, as a mixed race person, I have felt "foreign" everywhere I have ever been, thus observing the hierarchy of race internally.
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Questioning the value of our cultural quantifiers, (money, appearance, education) has become something very complicated. Ideas like "natural-beauty", "good-old labor" and "equal opportunity" have become ironic and out dated. Our current state of addiction to culture and more importantly our addiction to ourselves is obvious. Each of us is involved in a relationship with our current visual culture. We are fascinated by our own image and its' positioning in a virtual landscape. Developing self-worth, emotional engagement and investment in the digital world through the construction of our identities.
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Each image represents an individual but also components of one greater identity.