NATASHA JENSEN
CAAF Residency, May 2015 – July 2015
Open Studio, June 29, 2015
BIOGRAPHY
Natasha Jensen is a Calgary-based visual artist whose work is a tender and personal extension of herself and is inspired by obsession, female experience, and eccentricity. She has an interdisciplinary practice that takes form in drawing, sculpture, photography, installation and performance to create a dialogue about theatrical spaces and physical transformations. A graduate from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2013, she has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Calgary. Natasha Jensen is also the Visual and Media Art Coordinator at Arts Commons.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
There is something voyeuristic about drawing from someone else’s photographs. There is this separation that takes places between sentimental value of the photograph and the image becoming objective when appropriated into an artwork. Susan Sontag states in her essay On Photography states that “to photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge—and, therefore, like power.” What are the power dynamics when that image is again appropriated into a drawing? What is my relationship as artist making muses out of another artist muse? What are the gender and queer politics in place? These are all questions that permeate this collaborative series entitled STAY/TOUCH.
For the next two months Natasha Jensen will be creating a new series of drawings based from the personal photography of Colby Jones a fashion photographer based in London, England. Colby and Natasha became friends in 2010.