A Passionate Conceptual Art Enthusiast and Performer
Biography
Shelley Cook-Contreras is a transmedia artist who works in community-engaged performance, installation, drawing, and film.
Following her interest and training in somatics and ecopsychology, Cook-Contreras focuses on the psychosomatics of our society and environment, utilizing keen observation of the self and the systems in which we live.
Her recent video/performance, Water Prayer (2021), was part of Mexico’ Festival Virtual, Itsï, a large-scale project to reverse ecological damage to Lake Cuitzeo in the state of Michoacán.
Artist Statement
Like the subconscious that communicates with the conscious person through remembered dreams, I believe the artist can speak to society by giving form to his or her inner experience.
In this way, art, with its varied language of form, becomes the subconscious voice of society, revealing truth within its images.
With my body, with drawing, and with constructed environments, I explore the human experience within society, particularly the overlapping and politically charged issues of personal desire, human values, and societal restrictions.
I select materials based on their power to stimulate memories and associations, which may be unique to each person but that resonate a broader social significance.
The content and form of my work often evolve from collaborative interaction with communities. I film individuals and their environments. Their everyday language of common expressions is interpreted and translated into structures and actions that investigate the human experience.
My intention is to stimulate communication and raise awareness of gender, class, and environmental issues. In this way, I consider myself a social artist and call the works I make “Activators.”
I utilize performance, moving image, and sound to activate a container of time and space. Live art permeates the membrane that separates the viewer from the space and generates a direct exchange.
The concept of a time/space vessel is further expanded in my site-specific works. The poetry of structure and place is crucial to my performance and video, in which architectural structures and constructed environments are seen as metaphors of the human condition, blurring the boundaries between life and art.
My work is made from everyday objects and simple materials, such as earth, wax, and pigments, with elements of sound, projected image, and performance.
Frequently, video and sound form a conceptual architecture, utilizing layered graphic images and text. At times, my artworks encompass complex, large-scale installations. Other works are simple, body-based performances and drawings.
I work with a conceptual approach that closely blends life and art, interacting with communities in particular sites or very directly with nature.
These works, which I call “Social Sculptures,” reflect the psychosomatics of our society and investigate the relationship between the viewer and their experience of the history, the essence, imbedded within a place.
I focus on aesthetic power to reveal social significance. The site is often a catalyst in my work. I use the actions of performance to complete the installation, which remains on view.
I have been awarded fellowships from the National Endowments for the Arts and the California Arts Council in support of this work.