Emily Clara Aukland - Graduate

About me

The work I create centres around the notion of belief; that of faith, religion, spirituality and its 21st century counter parts. Initially I focussed on the sacred structures of religion themselves, but later developing to generate a more critically evaluative practice. I utilise key aspects of commodity culture - exploring the parallels between sacred belief and the belief in co-orporations, big businesses, especially those in the well-being sector. Taking inspiration from established figures of the 21st century such as business woman Elizabeth Holmes and Gwenyth Paltrow’s company Goop. In doing so I utilise tropes of these sectors, such as tincture bottles containing the glutenous and heavily scented ‘product of solace’, which sit upon replica shopping stands painted in soothing colours of light purple and blue. Being stimulated by looking into artists such as Shilpa Gupta’s piece Blame and Shana Moulton’s comical critique of women’s wellness culture. In addition to this I play heavily with text and it’s powerful, and often ironic effects as I build up the graphics of my simulacrum products and brands, often joining this with triadic orb logos and pale ‘transparent’ blue company colours. The work is not designed for a specific audience, like with the consumerist culture that it critiques, it is open to the mass viewer. It aims to bring up some of the ironic and also uncomfortable and sometimes amusing truths of post-modern belief in Western culture. Having grown up in a family with a ‘holistic healing’ background in the sacred heritage site of Avebury in Wiltshire, I am interested in the claims made by believers and the worrying extents to which this belief can sometimes go.

Skills

#faith#commodification#wellnes#spirituality#sacred#digital#image-