ART + DESIGN SENIOR EXHIBITION
Nina T Offutt
BFA Photography
Instagram: @ninaoffuttdrawings
ARTIST STATEMENT: Undergoing the mental effects of Nightmare Disorder caused by post-traumatic stress disorder for three years, I dream of dystopia, demolition, chaos, and death. Though challenging to dream of life-threatening environments every night, a positive aspect within the unconscious calamities my mind conjures up is that they inspire me to research, explore, photograph, blend, and illustrate visual spaces that are like the ones I see in my nightmares. In inspiration of my dreams which contain elements of urban blight, climate change, the evolution of technology, and the industrial workforce and mechanical constructions, I like to investigate real-life physical structures and how they have had either a positive or negative effect on its surrounding society and environment. I consider the importance of socio-economic issues, such as inequality, racial discrimination, unemployment, and poverty, as well as climate change, environmental pollution, drug addiction, mental health, and the advancement of technology. With my camera, I capture these sceneries and structures for both photographic work and drawing references, collaging and blending photographs together to create similar complex grayscale visuals from my dreams, additionally implementing physical elements from memory. My purpose for drawing and photographing physical structure is to honor human creation and to offer diverse perspectives of how physical structure has affected civilization then, how it is affecting civilization now, and how it may affect civilization in the future. It is to also ask the question of why physical structure is created, why it is upstanding, deteriorating, prospering or failing, how long it may last for, and how other ways of creating physical structure may present itself for the betterment of people, our society, and the planet.