Angela Biederman

A year ago, my studio practice was in the early stages of a new trajectory that paralleled fundamental shifts in my personal life that were equally devastating and profoundly enriching. Unable to capture the complexity and intensity of recent traumatic events and emotional extremes, I primarily worked in sketchbooks using media ranging from gouache, acrylic, ink, charcoal, pastels, and graphite to found art and collage. I approached my work freely, at times playfully, and without expectations for certain outcomes. Abstracting subjects such as cords, hair, eyes, and the body, I explored grief, loss, shame, states of entanglement and disentanglement, being bound or unbinding, and other means of creating internal self-portraits. While two-dimensional, I strived to give my work tactile qualities through methods such as layering and physical manipulation, aggressive mark-making, or in its depth and form.

I now seek to continue exploring many of these same themes and the visceral qualities of feeling, but with the inclusion of external realities and personal references such as portraiture, the figure, and symbolic elements. I hope to tell a more universal story through the portrayal of personal experience and address difficult and often unspoken and isolating truths such as illness, recovery, marriage and family of origin.