Kristen Hatgi Sink: “A Tented Sky” – Notions of Youth, Fragility and Beauty

Kristen Hatgi Sink was born in 1984 in Denver, Colorado, where she currently lives and works. She earned a BFA at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her work has been exhibited at venues across the country and abroad, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Japanese Paper Museum Ino, and Cohju Contemporary Art.

USA – 

Art & Culture feature – This latest series of photographic works marks a distinct evolution in Hatgi Sink’s work. Both sumptuous and disruptive her images indulge in excess while indicating that not all is well in paradise.  Referring to a line by the lyric poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Tented Sky presents a captive world, where femininity and nature are caught in a cycle of desire.

The stage is set to resemble familiar still life depictions of youth, fragility and beauty. However the objects of attraction find themselves struggling against their roles in this exploitative fantasy. Familiar metaphors comparing supplicated feminine sexuality and a natural commodities, such as ripe fruit, fresh meat and raw honey are presented in such suffocating abundance that the expected stoicism of the image’s subjects is shaken. Jarred into awareness of their own implicated position, the women in Hatgi Sink’s images express various stages of reaction within a voyeuristic frame they cannot seem to escape.

As in the poem Renascence from which the title is drawn, within Hatgi Sink’s A Tented Sky, the protagonists wrestle with their own awakening. Some of the models attempt to dismantle the signs surrounding them, tearing, ripping and crushing these natural objects controlling their image. Others seem to seek escape through darker self inflicted means. However, like Millay’s first person narrator, a number of these young women appear to eventually embrace or succumb to their fate, consumed by a male-dominated fantasy. Perhaps as Eve eating the apple, newfound awareness has also brought with it self-consciousness. After the first bite there is clearly no return to subjugated ignorance, nor a direct path towards liberation. The resulting ambivalence of this provocative collection of images may prove the most unsettling vision of all.

 

Related Posts

BANG AND BURN – Charlie Grosso

 U.S.A. – Emaho caught up with Charlie Grosso, a Chinese American artist based in California. Her work is primarily photography ...

Guillaume Blanchet : Ride ‘n’ Shoot

Canada – After spending a decade as an advertising copywriter, Guillaume Blanchet decided to cut loose and follow his passion of film ...

Sweet Electricity – Electrico

Singapore – Emaho caught up with the cult Singapore-based band Electrico and jammed with Dave Tan (guitar & vocals), Desmond ...

The Soul as Body – Kris Canavan

THIS STORY CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT Ireland- Since 2001 he has been making performance work that centres on the theme of ...

Ariana Page Russell: Beauty and Bruises

U.S.A- Our skin tells us stories about ourselves through each freckle, bruise and blush, which temporarily punctuates our flesh with ...

MarpLondon: “You don’t fight revolutions with silk gloves”

United Kingdom –  In her series “Icons of Modern Civilisation“,  British visual artist, Marianne deals with three themes.  Object of Desire – ...

Rides, Shoots and Leaves – Motographer Sundeep Gajjar

India – Sundeep Gajjar, 31, has a professional life so passionate; most people would kill to be in his shoes. ...

Andrew Salgado : Beautiful Monstrosities

England – London-based Canadian artist Andrew Salgado has long been trademarked as a painter who only paints portraits of men representing ...

Henry Rollins : Raging Empathy

U.S.A. – Henry Rollins has come a long way since leading the legendary and infamous punk rock band Black Flag, yet his ...