Kaiya Rainbolt

Aposiopesis was created as my MFA thesis body of work at San Diego State University, and was on display in SDSU's University Gallery in April of 2016.

Aposiopesis    

Greek: “becoming silent”

We sanitize painful social issues with language that has given up its depth; disassociating words and images from their true meaning to collectively consent to a reality where we can talk about, read about, watch, and listen to the most horrifying things and still fall asleep at night. 

    Is it possible to participate in meaningful and productive dialogues about these social issues when we are so detached? How can we respond to issues that are challenging without succumbing to the urge to reject those that are painful? Can a response to an art object promote engagement in a way that makes it easier to participate in dialogue about socially sensitive issues? 

    Aposiopesis is a series of works exploring these socially and personally significant questions through form. Abstracted forms are tempered by using referential elements that offer the viewer an opportunity to bring their own associations to the pieces. Manifested from personal childhood experiences, Aposiopesis represents emotions and outcomes of sexual abuse such as: shame, confusion, silence and helplessness that endure long after the physical and mental trauma of abuse has ended. These forms become the intermediary between the viewer and the language required for meaningful and productive dialogue about this too oft silenced social issue. By bringing the emotions of this particular human struggle into the realm of the tangible I hope to create an occasion for dialogue and empathy and a forum for understanding the fact that our becoming silent in the face of challenging social issues actually allows them to continue.

Upscale was created during a four month residency at Recology, the waste transfer and recycling center, in San Francisco, CA in 2011. All of the objects were made with materials harvested from the waste stream.

This body of work questions what we assign value to. By enlarging the scale of traditionally precious objects (a locket, a pearl necklace, and a diamond earring) I attempted to reduce their preciousness and use these  objects as vehicles to contain and protect items that are symbolic of things that I view as valuable. Things like growth, represented by seeds, time, represented by an hourglass, and passion, represented by a scavenged stamp collection.