Cactus Care: Brushing (2021)
Exhaustion mattress (2019)
full color digital video
description from the artist
Dealing with the effects of an auto-immune disorder, exhaustion, unfortunately, has been a subject I address in my artwork. Translating the internal feeling of extreme fatigue into performance has been a continuous process. In this work, the character carries a mattress at all times to collapse into when exhausted. She walks slowly, carefully throughout her day, with the 15 lb. twin foam mattress balanced on her head. Here she walks on a dusty road near an abandoned military base in Utah.
The mattress has been silkscreened with an image of the artist in a curled up sleeping position with espresso, milk, black tea and then burned into the fabric to replicate a damask pattern often seen on bedding.
Created by: gwen charles
Performer: Maggie Beutner
Made with assistance from Erin Carlisle Norton & Caitlin Bailey
Intracellular (2018)
description from the artist
approx. 20” x 24”
Post-consumer recycled organza fabric and one ounce glass microbeads
Red glass micro-beads are sewn into “pockets” on a kaftan style blouse made from post-consumer recycled organza fabric inspired by traditional Korean Bojagi patchwork. The wearer moves the red micro-beads across the body, like moving bio-fluid or energy through the cells. As a video and live performance, the dancer moves the microbes across the body and the camera captures the micro-beads moving with a macro lens, enlarging the image protected onto the wall.
Dancer Maggie Beutner.
included in the 2018 Bojagi Forum, Seoul Korea
China cabinet (2018)
description from the artist
Maggie dances with granny’s saucers, 2017
Inspired by the fashionable blue painted “Chinese Export plates” popular in the United States in the early part of the 18th century, these handmade saucers bracelets are made from stoneware clay, stamped and glazed in a shades of blue and white. The floral design saucers And daily floral chintz teacups and saucers that you might find in your grandmothers china cabinet.
These handmade ceramic saucer bracelets are made from stoneware clay, painted and glazed.
granny’s saucers, 2017, ceramic, approx. 6” diameter
set of 6, one A/P; Floral chintz
set of 6; Chinese export blue
Inspired by a dream where I found saucers in the china cabinet with holes that I wore saucers as bracelets, these handmade ceramic saucer bracelets take note from the saucers that you might find in your grandmothers china cabinet.
Glacial Ablation (2018)
full color digital video
description from the artist
Glacial Ablation, 2018
Full color HD digital video with sound, 20 minute loop
Created in the _gaia studios Wonder Women 11 residency, winter 2018.
Filmed by Julia Discenza through Gibney's Digital Technology Initiative.
Performed by Maggie Beutner
Exhibited: 03/2018 WWXI: Eye of the Storm, HCCC, Jersey City, NJ
After recently reading about newly discovered islands in the South Pacific ocean made of the ash from the submarine volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga and the sinking Marshall islands being swallowed by rising tides in the same area, I was in awe of the cycle of destruction and rebirth in the ocean. Sea levels are rising and oceans are becoming warmer as human-induced global climate change causes of islands and icebergs to disappear. In an effort to keep balance, Mother Earth creates new islands to replace what was lost.
Continuing with my recent explorations with plastic, translucency and light, the video Glacial Ablation features a recording of the female body beneath twenty feet of silver mylar and ten feet of clear cellophane in response to reading the articles about these sinking and emerging islands. Using simple, man-made tactile materials, the plastic and mylar evoke the tides and waves in the ocean, and the body as the island, struggling to reemerge from the oceans depths.
The image of the human body sinking and then coming up for air, becomes a metaphor for the human condition and our daily struggle to “keep afloat.”
As the slight silhouette of the body and the angle of a knee or elbow becomes noticeable, so does the connection to climate change caused primarily by human activity. Using the female body to represent the island follows a metaphorical use of body imagery in relation to landscape and reflects the tradition in the modern English language to give many objects a female pronoun. "She" is an optional figure of speech used when talking about bodies of land, islands, the ocean and Mother Earth.
I collaborated with a dancer Maggie Beutner to represent the disappearing island and the breaking iceberg.