Lily Patterson

BFA Sculpture and BS Mechanical Engineering

ARTIST STATEMENT: Lily Patterson is a multimedia artist who has traditionally engaged with fantasy and worldbuilding in her sculptural practice. Recently, her work has transitioned to focus on relationships, and how she reacts to cultural backlash to a liberalization of gender in the present-day United States.

This piece focuses on the ways in which outside viewers, unaware or adversely conditioned to the circumstances of transgender issues, react when initially confronting those ideas. For this specific work, Lily chose a set of five statements that, if the viewer identifies with, indicates their engagement with the work through the pressing of a button, causing a counter to increase. The artist will sit for six hours of the day, and will not be clothed, presenting herself as visibly transgender to the audience, something which is not normally directly confronted in her gender presentation.

The burden on the artist in this situation is made evident through the duration of sitting, the count of button presses, and chains which she will wear while inside her piece. Additionally, she will not eat, drink, or relieve herself for the duration of the piece, and while she may leave at any point shall only do so if it is for her own mental or physical health and wellbeing, if either is particularly endangered.

This piece is designed to provide to viewers an identifiable experience of a transgender individual, and to associate the beliefs stated on the piece with the isolated, oppressive structure containing the artist, here representing a segment of the broader transgender community. The artist hopes that this piece will lead viewers to reconsider these views, if they hold them, or at least to associate the holding of those views with the oppression of a group identity within society.